


Not in Kansas anymore

by multiverse_tourist (anniviech)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (applies especially for the first few chapters), Adventure, Angst, Dimension Travel, Fan Adventure, Fan-Insert, Gen, Mistaken Identity, Mystery, Science Fiction, also some
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-15 03:39:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 68,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9216986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniviech/pseuds/multiverse_tourist
Summary: It had been a perfectly normal day - until one little moment of curiosity turned Lydia Rayne's world upside down; with a stranger living in her father's flat, familiar phone numbers turning out wrong, and her best friend claiming not to know her anymore.Little did she know, that wasn't even the maddest part yet...--A story following the journey of an ordinary fan who accidentally ends up in the Whoniverse - and hopes to find a way back home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a still ongoing project that I've started quite a long while ago on FFNet - and since crossposting seems to be a rather common thing, I thought I might share it on here as well ;)
> 
> I tend to enjoy contemplating the concept of someone ending up in a fandom-world quite a lot, and sometimes I just can't help wondering: as an ordinary person, how would someone take it all? How might they cope with suddenly being a stranger to everyone, with no home or family and friends to turn to, faced with what they'd been used to know as just fictional characters and ideas?  
> So one day I sat down and started writing this little story here, with an older OC of mine as protagonist who I try keeping as realistic as possible.  
> It started out as a sort of experimental project where readers could occasionally influence the happenings in some way, then turned more and more into a 'regular' story as it progressed, soon developing a life of its own.
> 
> Well then; hope someone might enjoy it on here, too~  
> (Oh, and be 'warned' that this first introductory chapter might be rather one-sided.)

It had been a perfectly normal day.

She had been meeting an older acquaintance in a café in central London, catching up and making plans to go to the cinema and maybe clubbing afterwards the next day. Now she was on the way back to her dad's flat in order to prepare some dinner (because heaven knew he was a terrible cook), stepping out of the tube station and walking down a street on her right.

It was the third day of Lydia Rayne's annual visit to England. Ever since she'd become of age after the divorce of her parents, she took a one to two week holiday to spend some time with her father, who had returned to living in the UK. Lydia had stayed behind with her mother in Germany, where she had grown up, with the occasional family trip to England when she'd been younger.  
The young woman quite enjoyed her time in London, where her dad had moved to three years ago, getting to know the city bit by bit. While she loved the German city she lived in, there was just something about the lifestyle in London that called out to her. If it weren't for her mum, friends and job back in Germany, she might have considered moving there.

She was just deciding on what she'd prepare for dinner, when something caught her attention from the corner of her eye. Lydia turned her head to her right, stopping at what she spotted. There was a short dead-end alley with dark brick walls between two buildings, with a few waste bins standing close to the right wall. Those weren't what had caught her attention, though; it was a strange, bright light, seemingly coming from the back wall of the alley.

Odd, she didn't see anything that hinted at a lamp... She didn't think an ordinary lamp would be able to shine quite as bright in broad daylight, anyway. An involuntary shiver ran down her spine at the sight, making the fine hair on her neck stand up and her brows knitting into a confused frown.

Curiosity piqued now (wich often tended to get the better of her, she had to admit), she cautiously made her way towards it, looking around to see if anyone was watching as she didn't know whether it might be some private property. Not seeing anyone, she stepped into the alley and came to a stop in front of the back wall.

_Weird._

The light, which was wider than it was high and rather blinding now that she stood so close to it, looked like it came straight _out_ of the wall...  
Without thinking, she instinctively reached her hand up to trace her fingers along it and see if maybe there was something set into a hole in the wall.

The instant Lydia's fingertips touched the edge of the light, it seemed to shine even brighter and grow. It soon seemed to swallow her hand and didn't stop at that, swallowing everything around her and becoming so overwhelming that she had to squeeze her eyes shut and turn her head away. Yet even so the brightness was penetrating the thin skin of her eyelids, burning through the neural pathways as if she was looking right into the sun, making her clench her teeth through the pain.

Then, just for a second, it felt like she wasn't even standing anymore – was she falling?

A static like noise grew in her ears until it became almost unbearably loud. Her lungs refused to work properly in a rising twinge of panic; she was blinded by the whiteness and her eyes hurt, she didn't know where up and down was anymore and the noise in her ears was becoming deafening.

And just as she thought she couldn't bear it anymore, it all stopped as suddenly as it had started.

The brightness around her seemed to subside after a moment, and when she felt it safe enough to risk a look, she cautiously opened her eyes with a gasp, taking a shaky breath she had been holding. Blinking to get rid of the spots dancing in her vision, Lydia took a look around while lowering her arms, falling into a crouched position as her legs gave out under her.  
When the spots had faded enough from her vision to actually see her surroundings, she blinked once more, this time out of surprised confusion. There was still the same alley between the brick walls in front of her, only that the walls looked a lot darker than before – and that the light was gone from the back wall.

It then hit her that it was darker in general.

Turning around, the young woman found herself looking at the same street she had been heading from earlier – only that it was dimly lit by street lights now, instead of rays of sunshine. Looking up on a hunch, Lydia's eyes searched the sky for the sun – only to find stars twinkling back at her.

It was night.

How could it be night?! It had been just around four in the afternoon only a few seconds ago! She found herself staggering back, her back colliding with the wall, bum landing on the ground, while her eyes were still glued to the clear night sky. How was that possible? Had she... somehow spaced out for a moment? Long enough for it to get dark?  
With that thought in mind, she pulled her mobile phone out of her messenger bag, pressing a button on the side to activate the screensaver. _16:06_. According to her phone's clock, only about twenty minutes had passed since she had last checked it. So how come it was so dark...?

Taking a deep breath, trying to calm the thoughts starting to run wild in her mind, Lydia stood up and left the alley, deciding to think on it on the way to her dad's. Better to get out of there anyway, what with... whatever had just happened. She was certain there was some logical explanation for it.

 _There had to be_.

Was it possible that she had spaced out for a longer time without even noticing? The sun had been still high in the sky when she'd entered that alley, so she thought that at least a few hours must have passed for it to get so dark... _'My legs don't really feel like I've been standing for so long...'_   She thought she had been conscious the whole time during whatever had happened, too... A bit out of it (okay, make that _a lot_ ) yes, but still aware of things.

This was making absolutely no sense.

Getting more confused by the minute (and not to mention quite a bit scared, as well), she decided to just hurry up and get back to her dad's place as fast as possible, cursing her curiosity along the way. She couldn't help noticing how few people and cars passed her in comparison to earlier, which only intensified the feeling of it being late in the night. A fact that didn't really help her rising unease.

Relief flooded through her when she finally arrived at the street her dad lived on. She quickly made her way down the quiet street with its similar looking row houses and turned towards the one her dad lived at, quickly walking up the few stairs to the frontdoor. Fishing the spare key her father had given her for the duration of her stay out of her jeans pocket, she made to open the door. Yet as soon as she inserted the key, she knew something was wrong; it didn't fit all the way into the lock. Confused, she pulled it out to try again. When it still wouldn't go all the way in, she tried turning it anyway, which, of course, didn't help.  
Ignoring that all the windows were dark, she pressed the lower of the two doorbells, really starting to feel scared now. A few seconds of silence passed after the doorbell could be faintly heard, and when there was still no movement after a minute, she tried the bell again. After a moment a light finally went on in the window to her right and shortly after the door was opened.

"Sorry, I—"

The rest of the sentence never left her mouth as she caught sight of the person who had opened the door. It was a middleaged woman wearing a pink dressing gown, a rather annoyed and confused expression on her face. Lydia found herself gaping at the unexpected view.

"Do you know what time it is?" the woman asked in a slightly crossed tone.

"I-... S-sorry, I..." Lydia stammered, trying to make sense of the situation while her mind went blank. "I'm, uh... I'm looking for Daniel Rayne?"

"Rayne? Here lives no one with the name Rayne, you must have gotten the house wrong."

The woman was about to close the door again, so Lydia quickly added, "But this is number fifteen, isn't it?" Of course it was! She recognised the building, the street. This _was_ the correct house, she knew it. She still found herself asking, anyway.

"Yes. But there's no Daniel Rayne here, just the Browns and me and my son. I'm telling you you got the wrong house."

The door was being closed now, Lydia only caught a muttered "Really, kids nowadays getting so drunk they even get the homes wrong," before it finally fell shut in front of her nose.

For a moment the young woman simply stood rooted to the spot, staring at the wooden door, until her eyes found their way to the doorbells on her right. Dazedly, she pulled her phone out of her messenger bag, shining the light of its display on the nameplates. There, the upper one said _Brown_ while the lower one said... "Williams," she whispered, not quite believing what her eyes were seeing.

Still dazed, she took a few staggering steps back until she found herself back on the pavement. She kept staring at the dark house in front of her for a moment, the single light in the window turning off again. Swallowing, Lydia raised her phone and opened her contacts in order to call her dad. Completely ignoring the apparent time of night, all thoughts concentrated on sorting out the confusion, she waited for him to pick up.

The call had been unanswered for long enough that she had already been anticipating the voice mailbox answering, when there was finally a short crackle and a gruff voice asking, "H'lo?"

Lydia's breath got caught in her throat – something about that voice sounded wrong.

When she didn't answer immediately, the gruff voice continued, "Who is it?"

This was wrong. That wasn't her father's voice. It was too different, even for being distorted by sleepiness.

She swallowed again, already fearing the answer to the question she was about to ask. "Is... is this Daniel Rayne?"

A groan, then: "No, you got the wrong number." Some muttering about being woken up at this ungodly hour followed, before the call was ended.

Lydia stared at the phone, the display of the light fading out after a few seconds, her heart beating wildly in her chest. What the hell was going on?! Had she gotten the number wrong? But she had called straight from her contact list, and just yesterday it had been working! Quickly she opened her contacts again, this time calling her mother. She'd ask if maybe her dad had changed his number or something... even if that didn't explain how the number could be taken up again so soon, but still. That was the only reason she could think of for what had just occured.

A few seconds until the connection was established, then; the mailbox. Her mum's mobile was turned off.  
_'Well, it_ is _late at night... apparently.'_

She'd simply have to call on the landline then. Squashing any guilt she might have felt about waking her mum up, Lydia dialed the familiar number, making sure to get the country code right. It took a few seconds again to establish the connection, and when it did, her heart skipped a beat.

A recorded message of a polite female voice informed her that the number she had dialed was not available.

Regaining her bearings after the initial shock, she tried again – and got the recorded message again. Heart beating even faster, she double checked the number – it _was_ right! Country code and all! So why wasn't it available?!

Lydia decided to try one more number, almost afraid to fail again yet desperate to try at the same time. The seconds until the connection was established felt like minutes, but then the dial tone sounded and after only a few rings her call was answered.

"Hallo?"

Lydia's legs gave in in relief to the familiar male voice and she sank to the ground with a heavy sigh, switching to German. _"Sorry for calling so late, Wolfgang, but there's something really wrong going on here..."_

A brief moment of silence, then: _"...Who's there?"_

Hesitating for a second (why didn't he recognise her voice?), she replied, _"It's me. Lydia."_

_"Lydia who?"_

Lydia could feel the blood drain from her face. _"Lydia Rayne! You know, your best friend?"_ she added with a nervous giggle that sounded more like a squeak to her own ears.

Another short pause. _"Sorry, I don't know any Lydia."_

Lydia gasped at that statement; he actually sounded serious. _"What the hell, Wolfgang?! Please, this isn't funny, I—"_

The call was ended.

Lydia stared unseeingly ahead of her, eyes wide, the beeping from the closed connection ringing in her ear. Ending the call on her side, too, she let out a breath she hadn't noticed she'd been holding.

Was this all some kind of sick joke...?

She opened her phone's menu and texted a message.

_{Please don't joke with me, Wolfgang, this is really serious. Something happened, and I'm starting to get really, properly scared.}_

Sending it away, she let her head hang between her jeans clad knees. This couldn't be happening. Wolfgang wouldn't pull such a bad joke on her. Just what the hell was going on?  
Lydia took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She was sure he was going to call any second now to apologise for scaring her and assure her that everything was okay.

Her phone alerted her to a new message after a few minutes, making Lydia snap her head up again. Her fingers flew over the display opening the message.

_{Either you have the wrong number, or stop the stupid prank. No idea who you are. Please leave me alone.}_

She stared unblinkingly at the words, trying to wrap her head around them. They began to swim in front of her eyes after a while, and only when a single drop hit the display did she realise that she was tearing up from the strain of not blinking. Her breathing was coming harder now. She was confused to no end, scared and felt completely lost.

This couldn't be happening. It just wasn't making any sense! Her whole world seemed to have gone crazy and she didn't know what to do!

She could feel her breathing spinning out of control, so she tried to calm down. Taking deep, long breaths, she just concentrated on getting it back under control for a moment.  
When she felt like she wasn't about to hyperventilate anymore, Lydia slowly stood up, only to discover she was a little wobbly on her legs, thanks to the small adrenaline rush from the rising panic. Taking it slowly, she began making her way back to the nearest tube station, passing the now completely dark alley from before with some nervous unease. It looked perfectly normal and empty, though. No mysterious light to be seen, nothing to suggest that anything was out of the ordinary. So she simply walked on.

She decided to go home.

Screw having already paid for a plane ticket that would take her there in a week, she'd just buy another one. Or a train ticket, there were some trains to Germany that went to the city she lived in with only a single switching in Brussels. All she wanted now, was to go back home and be in the reassuring safety of her familiar flat.  
Somewhere in the back of her mind she realised that she was probably being hasty and irrational, and should maybe just... try again in the morning, or something, but she just wanted to go home right now. That plan was the only thing keeping her somewhat grounded at the moment, she'd deal with everything else afterwards.

Arriving at the tube station, though, made her aware of a problem in her plans; she had forgotten that not all of the tube lines operated at night, being used to most of the subway lines in her home city running 24 hours a day. Lydia became even more nervous, as she wasn't very keen on walking around alone at night. To her relief she spotted a bus station with a night bus line nearby that would take her to Victoria Station. The bus arrived after only a ten minute wait, which she was rather glad about.

During the bus ride, Lydia considered her next line of action. She'd have to find a cashpoint and make a withdrawal for the train ride to the airport, since her Oyster card wasn't valid on the airport express to Gatwick and she knew she didn't have enough cash for a ticket on her right now. She tended not to take too much money with her when she went out without any real plans for the day, since she didn't like walking around with huge amounts of cash, and she'd already spent most of it that afternoon catching up with her acquaintance. The rest of the cash she had exchanged in advance in Germany was left in her room at her dad's place for safekeeping, but it wasn't like she could get to it right now...  
She'd just have to deal with the high charges for another withdrawal then. For a moment she cursed her decision not to get a credit card, it really would have come in handy right now.

 _'That's right, keep thinking in logical, rational ways,'_ a small voice in the back of her mind advised. These were realistic problems, problems she could actually work out. So she concentrated on that line of thought to keep her mind somewhat grounded in this unexplainable situation she found herself in.

Arriving at Victoria Station, Lydia spotted a cashpoint after a little wandering around and made a beeline for the machine, pulling her wallet out. She put her bank card into the slot, waiting a few seconds for the machine to read it – before it was pushed out again with an error message shown on the screen. Frowning, Lydia pulled it out, making sure that the magnetic stripe was on the right side as it was displayed on a sticker on the machine. It was. She tried putting it in again, only for it to be pushed out again with the message that it wasn't readable. Her heartbeat was quickening again as she tried turning the card around and putting it in every other possible way. But no success.

What the hell, those were the kind of cashpoints she had withdrawn money from before! So it should be working with her foreign bank card! She tried another machine right next to the one she had been using, but had no more luck with it. Getting more anxious by the minute, Lydia looked for other machines in the station, trying out the ones she spotted, but with the same result, until she noticed some security staff taking an interest in her. When the man started making his way towards her, she felt like she was about to panic for some reason, not knowing how to go about the whole situation and explain herself without sounding crazy, and hastily left the station.

She turned down a street, walking quickly to get away from the security guard and any possible questions she was not quite sure she would able to answer in her current state. Maybe talking to some officials about her situation should have been her first approach, but somehow the fear of getting into trouble for spouting crazy nonsense with a bank card that was't readable was making her walk the other way. It didn't help that her line of thinking was beginning to drift towards less rational ideas and questions at that, either. If her contacts were wrong and her bank card too... what else could be? Her ID? Her home adress? Well, considering that her dad's apparently was...

Maybe she was afraid to be thought of as crazy because she actually _was_ losing her mind…?

That unbidden thought made her stop dead in her tracks.

 _'No, stop',_ she mentally chided herself before her thoughts continued down that line. If she continued on like that and gave in to the panic, she'd be completely done for. And then she wouldn't be able to function at all in order to find a way out of this mess, and she just couldn't let that happen now. Taking a shaky breath, she pushed the thought away. She just had to go on, everything was going to sort itself out. Somehow.

Raising her head, she took a look around and noticed she was close to the Victoria coach station. There were several people milling around, tourists by the look of the suitcases most had with them, and as Lydia got closer to the station she could see more people behind the well-lit glass front, a lot of them sleeping on seats and some even in sleeping bags on the ground. The young woman bit her lip considering her next step. She wasn't very keen on wandering around the city alone at night. This seemed to be a fairly safe way to spend the night and wait for the morning, considering how many people there were...

Having made her decision, Lydia entered the building and found a free spot in a small corner of a closed shop that protruded from a wall, sat down, and leaned against the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest.  
As she let her eyes roam over the various resting people, her thoughts soon returned to the mess she found herself in. How should she go on from here? Apparently she couldn't get any money, at least not from any machines... Then again, maybe there was just some technical problem with them or with her card? She'd been able to withdraw money from them last year... Or maybe there was simply some change in policies and they no longer accepted foreign crads? It might be worth to try her luck in a bank, ask what to do in order to get some money from her account.

So far, so good.

But after that, what? Was she really just going to go home, back to Germany? Without all her stuff? Without—

 _'Damn!'_ she mentally cursed. Her keys where in her suitcase at her dad's! Her mum had a spare one to her flat, but still... She lived a few towns away from her.  
Lydia sighed, letting her head rest between her knees and running a hand through her dyed cherry red hair, further loosening some strands from the messy updo with the gesture.

Maybe she should just try her dad's place again in the morning, after all? Maybe she really had gotten the house wrong? Even if it had looked the same... Still, it had been dark, and she hadn't been thinking very clearly, so maybe she had really just gotten it wrong in her flustered state?  
She felt that she was probably just clutching at straws, but what else was she to do?

Deciding to just give it another try later and then see where to go from there, Lydia tried to calm her frayed mind. The previous adrenaline rushes took their toll on her resting body, and after a while she found herself dozing off.

* * *

When Lydia woke up, it was light outside the glass front, the station bustling with some activity.  
Massaging a kink out of her neck - that really hadn't been the best of positions to fall asleep in - she relieved herself in the toilet and redid her hair, before sitting down in one of the free seats and trying her mobile again.

She had been half hoping that she had really just been getting things mixed up last night, but when she'd tried calling her dad, the same foreign gruff voice from before had answered. Her mum's mobile was still turned off, so Lydia just left a voice message on the mailbox asking her to call back as soon as possible. She had also tried calling her acquaintance who she was supposed to meet again today, but the number hadn't been available. No luck with another friend back in Germany either.

Putting the phone away again and feeling oddly numb at the results, the redhead rubbed her arms. Her light pullover didn't provide much warmth in the morning chill paired with her just having woken up. She could really use a hot coffee right now. At the thought of coffee her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten anything in quite a while.  
Funny how she could still get hungry in a situation like that.

Taking her wallet out of her messenger back, she checked how much money she still had on her; around six pounds. Enough for some light breakfast, at least. _'Well, might as well go and make use of it.'  
_ She tried convincing herself that she wasn't just trying to put off going to her dad's place again in fear that he still wasn't where he was supposed to be. She only succeeded partially in that.

Lydia only had to walk the streets for a few minutes until she found an open bistro that looked inviting – and not too expensive. Sitting down at one of the many free tables near the entrance inside, she checked the menu and ordered her coffee and some food she could afford.  
Absentmindedly sipping the hot beverage, she found herself wondering about her numbness. Compared to last night she felt oddly... calm? Was that even the right word? Or was it rather 'disconnected'? In any case, she didn't feel nearly as panicky as before. Maybe the little bit of sleep had helped? Then again, maybe she just wasn't awake enough for the situation to truly sink in yet...

She was startled out of her musings when someone suddenly plopped down in the chair next to her. Looking up from her cup in surprise to face the person, she was greeted with an overly cheery "Hello!" – and froze at the sight.

Sitting there, giving her a toothy grin, was someone she instantly recognised from television; David Tennant. The fact that he was in his Doctor outfit - complete with pinstriped suit, tan coat and 3D-glasses resting on his unruly hair - considerably helped the quick recognition.

Lydia found herself gaping at him, mind going blank, as the man put some flashing device, that looked like a prop straight out of the series, in front of him on the table.

A few seconds passed like that, him grinning at her while she gaped at him unintelligently, until he spoke again, all business-like as if they were in a perfectly normal conversation.

"Where are you from then?"

She blinked.

What the heck was this about?! David Tennant playing Doctor to some random person? Had she ended up in some kind of hidden camera show?

Lydia took a quick look around the small bistro, not noting anything out of the ordinary. The only other customer was reading a newspaper at his table, the waiter working on a coffee machine behind the counter.  
She returned her attention to the man next to her, finding him still looking at her intently. It could be, couldn't it? As far as she knew (which, admittedly, wasn't really much), the actor was known to play pranks on people...

A thought occurred to her then; this had to be the reason behind her current situation! It was all part of some huge, complex TV prank, with her friends and family playing along! Her pulse quickened at this conclusion, which pushed all other thoughts aside as she wanted to believe that to be the case.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, kind Anons! :)

_[Previously:]_

_A thought occurred to her then; this had to be the reason behind her current situation! It was all part of some huge, complex TV prank, with her friends and family playing along! Her pulse quickened at this conclusion, which pushed all other thoughts aside as she wanted to believe that to be the case._

* * *

After wordlessly staring at the man sitting next to her for a few more seconds, a sudden snort escaped Lydia at the realisation of just having been pranked (in quite an extraordinary way, she might add). She hid her face in her hands, elbows resting on the small table, as her shoulders shook in barely suppressed laughter, just on the edge of becoming hysterical. The extreme relief she felt at the explanation to her situation and the knowledge that her world would go back to normal now, was making her almost giddy with the sudden roller coaster of emotions she found herself in. Gone was the numbness from before.

When she looked up again a moment later, red-faced and eyes slightly watery from laughing (and probably being a little emotional, too, if she was honest) she found him still looking at her, his face now a mask of confusion.

"Oh god," she chuckled, "I completely fell for that! You really got me there." Her mouth relaxed into a small grin and she was becoming a little nervous now as it was starting to truly sink in just who she was talking to.

The actor frowned at her words. "What?"

Lydia couldn't help raising an eyebrow at his in-character reaction. "Oh come on, you can drop the act. I've figured it out."

David's (she decided to just call him by his first name in her mind) mouth opened, his lips forming a small 'o', as he tilted his head back slightly, still regarding her with some confusion. "Really now?"

"Well, yeah, wasn't really that hard. I mean," another small grin spread over her lips as she pointed her hand up and down his form, "You kinda gave it away with that look."

His eyes followed her hand and then looked down at himself. "Why, what's wrong with how I look?"

Lydia simply stared at him. "Seriously?"

When he just continued staring back indignantly at her, his left eyebrow up high, she frowned slightly. It looked like he wouldn't just drop the act as she had suggested, and she wondered why that would be. An idea occurred to her then; since they had obviously put so much effort into this prank-thing, they probably expected some... material to fill their show with.

The redhead closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. "All right then, guess I'll just have to play along a little?"

Lydia only got another confused frown as a reply, so she decided to just go with it. She wasn't quite sure if she felt more annoyed or excited with the new situation she now found herself in. A little bit of both, she supposed. At least now she knew that everything would be okay again once this whole thing was over, which was a huge relief. Oh, there would be quite a talk with her dad, and Wolfgang was going to get an earful for scaring the shit out of her, but now that she knew it was all just a joke, maybe she might even try to enjoy herself a little?

Lydia dropped her gaze back to the food and half-full cup of coffee in front of her. "Uhm... would it be okay if I finished my breakfast first, before we go on with this... thing? I _am_ rather hungry..." she admitted. _'Thanks to you people making me fret and run around London the whole night,'_   she silently added.

David blinked in momentary surprise at her, before giving her a smile. "Oh, yah, of course!"

He was taking the 3D-glasses off his head as Lydia took a sip from her now lukewarm coffee, folding them and putting them into a pocket of his suit. Just as he had put them away, the waiter who had served her before approached their table. Lydia watched the man's reaction as he came to a stop in front of them, looking at David and asking if he could get anything for him. She silently applauded the waiter's control of not showing any sign of recognition of the actor in his rather famous outfit, as he took David's order of tea. Then again, maybe he really didn't recognise him... _'Or he's in on the prank.'_

When Lydia reached for the sandwich on her plate, her grey eyes caught sight of the prop like looking device lying next to it. Some of its small lights were still flashing. David seemed to notice her looking at it and put a long-fingered hand on the prop, patting it lightly.

"Energy detector," he explained at her curious look. "Works great on locating signatures that originate from rift activity." He was staring at her intently, apparently waiting for some kind of reaction from her, lips parted, revealing the underside of his tongue which was touching the roof of his mouth.

Lydia just raised her eyebrows a little at his explanation, sandwich held still in front of her mouth. "Err, okay..."

It was almost a little eery how well he was playing the Doctor part, the look he was giving her actually made her shiver a little with its intensity. Well, she had to give him that; David Tennant still had the Doctor persona down to a T, even after having been out of the role for a while now. She briefly wondered why they had chosen him for the prank, instead of the current actor – not hat she minded, far from it.

He held her gaze for a while longer, and she couldn't shake the nervous feeling that he seemed to be searching for something in her eyes. The waiter returned with the ordered tea then, making the actor move the device to the edge of the table to make room for the tea, and the eye contact was broken.

Clearing her throat a little awkwardly (' _What had that been about?'_ ) Lydia finally took a bite out of her sandwich. The next few minutes passed in silence while she finished her breakfast, her eyes roaming all over the place trying not to stare too much at the man, the nervousness at the company she was in now really settling in the pit of her stomach. _'Okay, just play it cool. You can do this.'_

Once she had finished her sandwich and emptied her cup, Lydia gathered her courage and decided to try going for a little small-talk about the situation, maybe worm some information about the show the prank was staged for out of David, before plunging herself into it.  
She put a napkin she had used to clean her mouth with on the plate, gathering some more courage, and once more cleared her throat. "So... before we really get into this, anything I should know? Any specific kind of behaviour expected or anything like that...?"

David put his cup down after taking a sip of his steaming tea, his brows furrowed into a frown. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean... This is quite an... unusal situation, so I suppose I should be showing some kind of reaction? I mean, apart from going through quite the bit of shock and panic last night," she commented, not quite able to keep the slightly accusing tone out of her voice. There was no denying that the joke had been more than just a little exaggerated, after all. "Or is it okay that I already figured things out?" she added in an afterthought.

He continued staring at her with the same frown. "I really don't know why you'd ask _me_ how you should be behaving."

"I- well-..." It didn't look like she'd be getting any information out of him. Taking a deep breath, she decided on trying to simply roll along in that case. "All right. I'll just... follow your lead then, I guess."

The actor blinked in surprise at her sudden change in response, but seemed to take this as his cue as he took another quick gulp of his tea (she almost winced, it must have surely still been quite hot), before rising up from his seat.

Lydia followed his example and got her wallet out to place some money for her breakfast on the table, briefly wondering if they had arranged it for David not having to pay for his tea, before grabbing her messenger bag and nervously following him out of the bistro. He was waiting at the door, holding it open for her, and she mumbled a quick "Thanks" before slipping past him.  
The young woman took a look around outside, trying to catch a glimpse of a camera somewhere, but didn't have any luck. They were really good at this – but then again, that was the whole point of hidden cameras, right? You weren't supposed to be able to spot them.

She was pulling the strap of her bag over her shoulder when a whirring sound pulled her out of her thoughts. Turning her head to her right where the sound was coming from, she saw David pointing his sonic screwdriver - with glowing blue tip and even sound and all - along the length of her frame.

When he noticed her looking at him with raised brows, he commented, "Oh, don't mind me," before holding the prop close to his face, mimicking reading the scan as he did in the show, and then frowned once again.

Lydia couldn't help commenting on it, slightly amused at the gesture despite the nervousness. "Didn't find what you're looking for?"

He took a sidelong glance at her and the hint of an amused smile playing around the corners of her mouth, before placing the screwdriver back into the inside pocket of his coat with a sniff. "Fancy a little walk?" he countered her question, while shoving his hands into his pockets.

In response she simply shrugged - really, what else was she supposed to do other than follow him? - and gestured for him to lead the way.  
As they walked, Lydia soon found the morning to be still rather chilly. She crossed her arms in an attempt to warm herself, her shoulders slightly hunched.

"Forgot to bring suitable clothing with you?"

The sarcastic tone in his voice miffed her a little for some reason.

"Well it's not like I was prepared to be spending so much time outside, now was I?" she shot back without thinking.

David simply raised a brow at this and then continued on in silence. Lydia felt a little bad about getting snappish with the actor, but that comment really had been uncalled for. It was _their_ fault she wasn't able to get to her clothes and put a jacket on, after all. _'Still... no reason to take it out on him.'_

The walk continued on in silence, her sharper-than-intended remark having apparently shut him up, which made her feel even more bad about her reaction. _'Here you are, actually getting to spend time with a famous actor playing a favourite role, and what are you doing? Being snappish. Way to go, Lydia,'_ she mentally sighed. God, she felt like slapping her hand against her forehead.

The situation wasn't at all how Lydia had expected it to be; she had thought something would happen to bring an element of action into the show, since that was probably the whole point of it, right? But so far they had only been walking next to each other. Then again, maybe he was leading her to some place they had prepared? He did seem to be following a set route...  
And another thing that confused her was the silence. Yes, she had probably cut off his attempt at small-talk earlier, but David had been so very in-character before. Shouldn't he be babbling away anyway in his role?

She was just about to bring up some small-talk herself, worrying that she might have actually offended him before, when they came into familiar surroundings. The redhead snuck a peek at the man walking next to her, waiting for some kind of reaction from him, but he simply went on in a determined stride. They passed a familiar tube station, and when they were nearing the alley where she had seen the strange light the day (or was it night?) before, she slowed her pace, falling behind a little.

So this was where they were headed to? It would make sense, since that was where things had begun to go weird.

As if to prove her assumption right, David stopped at the entrance of the alley. He turned towards her and simply stood there, watching her expectantly with his hands still in his pockets. _'Guess it's about to really start then...'  
_ When she also came to a stop a few metres away from him, staring at him for a few seconds, unsure what she was supposed to do, he finally prompted, "Well?"

Lydia nervously fiddled with the edge of her messenger bag, noting his eyes flicking down at her hand at the movement, not knowing what was expected of her. "Well what?"

He kept staring at her with a carefully neutral expression. "Nothing to say?" His voice sounded rather doubtful, though.

Her eyes started roaming over the sight in front of her, trying to see if she could make out a camera or anything out of the ordinary he could be hinting at. There was nothing unusual in the alley that she thought she would be expected to react to, though – well, other than David Tennant dressed as the Doctor, of course. It was only when she returned her gaze to him in the center of the entrance, that she caught a flicker of something blue in front of the waste bins next to the right wall out of the corner of her eye. The colour seemed out of place to what she remembered, and when she looked directly at it, she gasped.  
How the hell had she missed it before?! A familiar blue, wooden Police Box was standing just a little to the right behind David!

Lydia felt a grin form on her lips. No wonder he had been waiting for a some kind of reaction from her! "The TARDIS, _of course_! Should've been expecting it, really," she mumbled the last part more to herself.

His response was a little unexpected, though. He looked at her in slight surprise for a brief moment, before composing his features back to a neutral expression, asking, "You know about the TARDIS?"

Lydia couldn't help giving him a look. "Well I know you, so of course I'd know about the TARDIS." She hadn't pretended not to recognise David for the prank, after all, so this really shouldn't be coming as a surprise. She had assumed they would simply treat her as a fan being surprised and getting a treat by the "Doctor" in the show, or something along the lines. Her eyes lit up then, excitement building inside her at the sight of the blue box, and she found herself stepping closer to it. "Does that mean I get to take a peek inside? I've always wondered what the interior actually looks like..."

There was a moment of silence while she was drinking in the sight of the actual thing from the show. (She was _so_ going to ask if she could take a picture in front if it later! Maybe even with David if he agreed?)

"Ohhh, so that's what this is about then, hm? Here to get into my TARDIS?" David's voice had gone more quiet, taking a low quality.

Surprised at the sudden change in his tone, Lydia turned towards him only to find him standing right next to her, his face serious. His hand suddenly shot up, grabbing her bag and pulling its strap effortlessly over her head in a smooth move, taking advantage of the rather big difference in height between them.

Dumbfounded by the sudden action, she only found her voice when he opened it and started going through her things. "Hey!"

"Who sent you?" He was taking out her mobile phone as he asked the question, pointing the sonic screwdriver at it. "Some Torchwood spin-off perhaps? Not yet tired of meddling around with the walls of the universe, are they?" he asked without taking his eyes off her phone. After a moment he changed his grip on the screwdriver and activated the touch screen, looking through her phone with swipes of his fingers. "You'd think people would learn their lesson..." he mumbled in an almost distracted way.

Lydia was so stunned at the sudden change of his demeanour - and the act of him going through her personal belongings - that for a moment she simply gaped at him, not knowing how to react. Was this the beginning of the play for the prank's show then? But even so—

"HEY! You can't just go through my stuff!" She made a grab for her bag, but he simply pulled it out of her reach.

"Oh yes I can. Doing it right this moment, in fact," he simply retorted, continuing to browse through her phone.

She found herself gaping at him again. Just because he was in costume, didn't mean that he could do whatever he wanted! When she saw that he was going through the text messages in her phone, she got angry. "That's _private_!" she snapped.

And was ignored, as he simply went back to looking through her bag after another moment.

"Okay, this is quite enough! This is going way beyond any boundaries of a prank!"

David looked up from running the sonic screwdriver through her bag, still looking quite serious. "Prank?"

"Yes! You can stop now and cut me out of the show or whatever this was staged for!" She took a moment to calm herself, the emotional exhaustion finally starting to catch up with her. She had barely slept, been played by her fear, pushed from panic to nervous excitement and now anger by being bereft of her privacy, just so random strangers behind the telly could have a laugh at her.

Enough was enough.

She couldn't help feeling a touch of disappointment in herself, though. It was a rare opportunity to be part of something special like this, after all, and finding herself not quite meeting up to her own expectations of simply going along with it and enjoying it while it lasted was admittedly rather disappointing.

"It's not that I don't appreciate being a part of it, but..." She sighed and drew a hand through her pinned up hair, not quite able to find the words. God, she felt beyond awkward at failing so spectacularly at taking a prank in stride, even if it was pushing boundaries.

Several moments passed in silence after her small outburst, David frowning at her with her bag and the screwdriver still in his hands.

"You've completely lost me there," he finally stated.

Lydia couldn't help rolling her eyes in exasperation. "Please, can't you just drop it for a moment?"

"Drop what?"

"That Doctor-act."

" _Act_?" he asked, taken aback. "I think you've got something mixed up there. I _am_ the Doctor."

"Right," she replied, pointing her thumb over her shoulder towards the blue box. "And that TARDIS over there is actually bigger on the inside," she deadpanned.

He didn't answer, simply kept on looking at her with the same seriousness. When his expression still didn't change after a few seconds, she crossed her arms. "Fine, prove it then." Maybe _that_ would finally get him out of his act.

"And let you in? Oh, wouldn't you just like that," he mocked her.

Beginning to feel annoyed at his stubbornness to drop the Doctor-act, apparently still intent on continuing the prank, Lydia decided to counter him on that very same line. "What, afraid that I will run away with it? I thought your ordinary human wouldn't be capable of flying a TARDIS, so what is there to be afraid of about me taking a look?" she challenged him. _'Other than finally having to stop this charade in the face of an empty, wooden box,'_   she mentally added.

"They wouldn't," he simply replied. "But enough of the games." He took a step towards her, towering over her small frame, and the intense look in his eyes actually managed to make her feel a little unsettled.

He really _was_ a good actor, even if that fact was a cause of annoyance to her right now.

"Who are you working for and where is the device you used to breach the Void with?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has currently 13 finished chapters and is still a work in progress. I'll probably post a new chapter around every few days - once we hit the 13th, the updating time will likely increase considerably, though. (Just to warn you - I'm a slowcoach like that.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lydia is still clinging desperately to the only rational idea about her situation, just to be in for a surprise...

_[Previously:]_

_"Who are you working for and where is the device you used to breach the Void with?"_

* * *

Lydia groaned at the question and closed her eyes for a moment, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Didn't he realise that it was beginning to not be funny anymore in the least? "Please, Mister Tennant, stop the charade. I really meant it when I said I want to be out of whatever this was staged for."

David's expression didn't change, though. "Whatever games you're trying to play won't work, so you may as well stop trying to distract me. Tampering with the walls of the universe is one of the things I do not take lightly." The dark tone in his voice hadn't changed, either.

She stared at the man in bewilderment, not quite believing he was still stubbornly keeping up the act. Wasn't there some kind of "code" to signal that she wasn't up for the prank? Was calling him by his real name not enough?  
She might not have known too much about the actor's private life, but he'd always seemed kind enough from what little she had seen of him – she would've expected him to show a little more consideration here...

"No really, stop it please! This is no longer fun and I do no want to be part of this thing, all right!" The last part wasn't directed at David himself, but more at their general surroundings, to any cameras that might be hidden.

"You're quite stubborn, aren't you?"

Lydia gaped once again at the remark. To hear that from _him_!

She tried to keep her voice as calm as possible when she spoke again. "Listen, I've really had enough of this. This prank, or whatever this is supposed to be, is _more_ than pushing boundaries, and I do not want to be part of it anymore! I wasn't kidding when I said that I went through quite the bit of shock and panic last night, you know. So I'm kindly asking you, and the team, to stop this now and return everything to order. I'd really like to go home, take a long shower and get some real sleep." The last bit tumbled out of her mouth without really meaning to, but she didn't care anymore. All she cared about, was that he finally realised that she was being serious about it.

The actor gazed at her thoughtfully before offering Lydia's messenger bag to her. She took it back, thanking him stiffly, and watched as he crossed his arms.

"Fine. Tell me what you believe this is about then," he requested, his voice bordering on sarcasm.

Oh, _really_? He still wouldn't give up? Still, it was a start, she supposed.

"I _believe_ ," she sarcastically emphasised, "That you're playing the Doctor for some kind of hidden camera show. And for some weird reason I was picked as the 'victim'. I wonder who of my friends or family got the idea to enrol me for that, and how you got them all to play along with it...?" She watched him with raised eyebrows, hoping to maybe get an answer to the unasked question.

A few moments passed in silence while Lydia waited for his reaction.

"Is this the best you can come up with?" He neither sounded nor looked very impressed.

Lydia felt frustration bubbling up in her. "Oh, what the hell! Why can't you just stop playing that role?!"

"I'm not the one playing a role here," he calmly replied.

The young woman made a frustrated sound at the turn in conversation. If he wanted to stubbornly cling to his role, then so be it! She was quite through with this pointless discussion. "You know what, I'm out. It was nice meeting you, Mister Tennant."

With that she turned on the spot and begin walking away from the alley, frustrated with the whole situation. If talking didn't help, then maybe action would finally make them see reason.

"Oi!"

She had only walked a few steps, when she heard David catching up with her.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Home to my dad's place," she replied without looking at him. "And if I have to threaten that actress you people have placed there with the police to let me in, then trust me, I will."

"What?" came the confused response behind her left shoulder.

"I mean it. This is currently also my home, with my belongings in there, and no actress or TV company has a right to keep me out," she said with a hint of anger in her voice. "I can't believe you went so far as to change the lock!" she added with a look at him. "I mean, _really_?"

David surprised her by keeping up with her, she'd thought he would have called a stop to it all by now. That, or just let her go. But he kept on walking next to her, seeming to contemplate something as he watched her from the side.

"What is the last thing you remember before the... prank started?" Lydia shot him a look, to which he simply added, "Humour me?"

Well, it wasn't like she had anything to lose, so with a sigh she decided to give in to his request. "I was on my way home to my dad's, when I stopped at that alley back there. Noticed a strange light at the back wall, and when I got close to it, it sort of... grew around me? How did you guys do that, anyway? Did you hide spotlights or something? And how did you..." She hesitated before continuing the question, a little unease returning now that she was thinking back to that moment. She swallowed thickly, then continued, "How did you make the time pass without me noticing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when I entered the alley it was afternoon, but the next time I looked up when I was no longer blinded by the light, it was night?" She glanced at him, still feeling a little unsettled with the memory of feeling like she was falling for a second, making her shiver. Really, how _had_ they done it? She was pretty sure she had been conscious the whole time...

David ignored her question after a brief moment of silence, countering it with another one. "What happened then?"

"What, did no one tell you?" she couldn't help asking with a slightly sarcastic tone, a little unhappy with her questions being ignored while he kept on asking more himself. She decided to continue humouring him, though, maybe hearing it from her point of view would make him realise to just what extent the boundaries had been pushed.  
"I tried getting into my dad's house, only to find that my key no longer fit, and that colleague of yours answering the doorbell instead of my father, telling me he didn't live there. My phone contacts turned out to be useless – and may I stress again how this, too, is quite exaggerated for a TV hoax? – so without having anywhere to go and starting to panic, I roamed the streets and ended up spending the rest of the night in a coach station. The rest should be familiar to you."

They were nearing the street her father lived on now, and when she looked at David again, she found him apparently deep in thought. A small hope begin blossoming in her; had she maybe succeeded in making him finally see reason? Had he perhaps really been unaware of just _what_ exactly she'd been put through?

They were entering the street when something caught her eye. The same middleaged woman from the night before was leaving her dad's house (and yes, it really was the right one as Lydia could now clearly see in the daylight), climbing into an unfamiliar car and driving away.

Had they finally decided to give up and told the woman to leave? The hope in Lydia grew, and she felt a small victorious grin forming on her lips. "Speak of the devil; there goes your colleague. I do hope my father's home now to explain things."

David's eyes followed the car until it disappeared behind the corner, before glancing at the much smaller redhead. "Well, shall we find out and see?" Without waiting for a reply, he went ahead and bounced up the few stairs to the door of house number fifteen. "Which doorbell?"

"The lower one," Lydia answered. She was a little disappointed to see that it was still labled with the name "Williams".

David pressed it and they heard the doorbell ringing, followed by the sound of a door being opened inside. When the front door was opened, Lydia found the growing hope inside her die again. A teenaged boy, probably around fourteen, was standing in the doorway, looking them over.

"Hello!" David chirped cheerily, his whole demeanour suddenly changed again. He turned towards Lydia, probably waiting for her to continue, but when he saw her simply staring at the boy with a deep frown on her face, he went on, "Terribly sorry for the sudden disturbance, but my friend here," he motioned his hand at Lydia, "Used to live in this house once and would really love to get a chance to have look inside. For nostalgic reasons. Would it be too much of a bother to give her a minute or two to take a quick look around?"

The boy looked at them warily, appearing not to be all too sure how to react to this situation. "Uh, I don't know... I mean, I don't even know you or anything..."

"Oh, it's quite all right," David replied with a smile on his face, while looking for something in the inside pocket of his coat. "I'm an estate agent for this district – this young lady here asked me to help her find her childhood home. See?" He pulled out a small, black leather wallet and held it open to him. "You would really do her a great favour."

The boy leaned in closer and took a look at it. "I suppose, if it's just a minute..." he eventually gave in.

Lydia almost rolled her eyes at the psychic paper number. _'Great, another actor then... When are they going to give this up?'_ She was beginning to feel really annoyed, her patience wearing thin. But then again, they had to stop it at this point, right? It wasn't like they could hold the hoax up much longer once they were inside.

The door was further opened for them to step through, and David was quick to follow the boy in. Lydia frowned at the assortment of unfamiliar shoes standing outside the door to her dad's flat, but chose to ignore it in favour of following the actors inside.  
She was almost prepared for a camera team awaiting her inside, to confront her about her experience.

What she wasn't prepared for, was a completely different interior decoration.

Lydia stood in the hallway, looking through the doorway of the living room, and gaped at the sight in front of her. It looked completely different! From the furniture to wallpaper, nothing was the same! This... They couldn't have done that in just half a day, could they...?  
Heart racing, she practically ran to the door of the guest room she occupied during her stays, but when she opened it, the same complete change in decoration greeted her. Wrong wallpaper, wrong furniture, wrong accessories. Not one thing she recognised – apart from the window being where it was supposed to be, the one familiar thing being the view outside it.

She stared numbly at the foreign looking room, hand still resting on the doorhandle, her brain having trouble processing what her eyes were seeing. She was only dimly aware of David coming to a stop just behind her. A few moments passed like that, with her staring in shock at the room while he hovered over her shoulder.

"Found your room?"

His quiet voice pulled her mind out of the haze it had fallen into.

"Where's my stuff...?" she muttered forlornly, her brain still not quite grasping what she saw.

She felt a gentle touch on her shoulder, guiding her away from the room. They went back to the front door and Lydia only dimly registered David saying a few more words to the boy, before numbly following him out to the street.

It was all becoming a little too much for her.

Had they really gone through the trouble of redecorating her dad's home for a prank and hidden her things? Would they've been even able to in the short amount of time? But what did it mean if they hadn't? It had been the right house, on the right street, with the same front door and all...

_What was going on?_

She'd simply kept walking along, following the actor's lead without really taking note of their surroundings, her mind running in circles without being able to form any clear line of thought. So it took her a little by surprise to find that she had followed David into a nearby small park, who was currently taking a seat on a park bench, motioning for her to do the same. After taking a seat next to him, they simply sat there for a moment, watching a woman walking her dog pass by.  
When the woman got out of view, David began to speak.

"I think it's time we talked for real about what is going on here."

Oh, Lydia would like nothing more than to know what the hell was going on! Because if the only idea that made sense to her about this whole situation wasn't true, then she didn't know what to think. Her mind couldn't even begin to grasp what that would mean.  
So she really hoped he was finally going to clear it all up, exclaim that she had been fooled, grin while shaking her hand and apologise for all the trouble they had made her go through.

When she didn't say anything, waiting for him to go on, he continued, "You know, I haven't even asked you for your name yet... Terribly rude, that."

She blinked at that, pulled out of the little wishful scene she'd just imagined. "It's Lydia."

"Right, let's try this again then; Nice to meet you, Lydia." He held out his hand for her to shake - well, at least that part of her imagination came true. When she took his slightly cooler hand in hers, he added, "I'm the Doctor. But then again, you seem to already know that. Well, more or less. I'm a little confused about whether it's actually more, or less." He frowned, only now letting go of her hand. "Care to enlighten me?"

His little speech completely shattered her hope of finally getting a straight clarification out of him. Something inside her snapped, and she felt the numbness of the earlier shock give way to an emotional turmoil.

"Why are you still insisting on being the Doctor?!" she demanded.

"Because I am," he simply replied.

"Yeah right," she scoffed. "And I fell through a crack in the universe, or what?"

It had only dawned on her as she was thinking back to the happenings when she told David about them earlier, that the light in the wall had been sort of shaped like the cracks that became a theme in the later seasons of the show. Had they really planned it all through this elaborately, then? Did that mean they'd actually go through the trouble of redecorating, and all, and it could still be a hoax?  
That was the only thing seeming logical to her right now. She really didn't know what to think anymore, and the uncertainty about the whole situation was becoming agitating.

The look in in David's eyes became once more intense at her comment. "How'd you get that idea?"

"Oh come on; a light in the wall that looks like one of those cracks, you dressed up like this, things being similar and yet different at the same time? It all does fit rather nicely to the show. Whoever thought this all out is quite creative, I'll give you that."

His dark eyes fixed on hers. "Show? What show?" A brief pause when she didn't immediately answer, then: "You've mentioned actors before...?"

The frustration bubbled again. Instead of telling her what had happened to her father's home, he still kept the charade on, going on with the stupid questions?! Wasn't it obvious how this whole thing was bothering her?  
She could only take so much, and she was close to loosing her temper.

"You know what, _fine_! Prove that you really are the Doctor, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" Her tone already told him that she didn't believe he could actually do that. "And if you can't, I hope you'll finally stop this whole, stupid act."

His brows knitted into a frown at this. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. Then she remembered something; "Right! Show me the TARDIS. If it's truly bigger on the inside, I won't ever question you again." Her voice was heavy with sarcasm.

He actually seemed to consider this, which she almost found amusing. Almost.

"How do I know you aren't just trying to get into it with ulterior motives? I'm still not quite convinced you aren't working for some obscure organisation, you know." His tone at the latter part was a strange blend of jokingly serious – however he managed to do that.

Lydia rolled her eyes at the actor, sighing. Of course he was backing out. What else was there to expect? It wasn't like he _could_ actually prove himself, especially not in that particular way. So when would he finally start getting tired of this play?

But then his next remark surprised her: "All right. But only a peek into it, and no getting anywhere near the console."

The redhead blinked in stunned surprise.

"And I expect detailed answers to all my questions," he added while giving her an expectant look. "Deal?" He raised his left brow at her.

Lydia nodded hesitantly after a second of just staring at him, but still found herself asking, "Seriously?"

He stood up and began walking away, calling over his shoulder when she didn't follow immediately. "Come on then, before I change my mind."

* * *

It surprised Lydia a little to find that the man was actually leading her back to the alley, where the blue Police Box was still standing in front of the wastebins. Even more so when he pulled a small silver key out of somewhere and put it into the lock. He turned it and then glanced back to her, raising his eyebrows with an expectant look, waiting for her to her to take the next step. Once she'd come closer, he pushed the door open and made an 'after you' gesture.

When the door swung open wide enough for her to look inside, Lydia felt the blood rush from her head.

There was a whole round room to see, with twisted columns circling around what looked very much like the console she knew from the show.

For a moment she simply stood in front of the opened door, staring with her mouth hanging open, before rushing around the box. She went around it to the back, touching the wood along her way - the _vibrating_ wood, as she noted - not trusting her eyes. It was the regular size of a phone box, just the way it looked to the eyes. It had taken her only a few steps to make her way around it and be standing next to the brick wall of the alley.

How was that possible?

Maybe... maybe they had sort of... projected a 3D image or something inside?

She went back to the opened door, finding a slightly amused looking David still standing where he had been, obviously waiting for her to finish her inspection. Lydia gave him a nervous look, before gathering her courage and stepping into the box.

A few steps along the grating–

Wait, _grating_?

She looked down at her Converses clad feet, finding that she could actually see that there seemed to be a lower level beneath them. Blinking numbly at that discovery, she looked up again and let her eyes wander over the place. It actually looked like it was a real, big room, the depth of field adjusted whenever her eyes changed focus, and the idea of it just being a projected image was slowly crumbling away. There was also pulsating sound reverberating from the walls, intensifying the feeling of being inside a big room.

Lydia went back to the wall to the left of the door, running her hand over it. The texture felt real enough to what it looked like, too, and when she leaned over the railing to stretch her arm out, she didn't encounter the limits of the box that she should be expecting from its outer appearance.

Her little exploration was cut short when David's voice sounded from the center of the room, apparently having passed her without her even noticing.

"Is that proof enough?"

She turned around to face the actor – only, maybe he wasn't just an actor, after all...?

That thought got stuck in her mind, and she found herself stumbling over it, not quite ready to take in the implications. Her heart was racing again, and she was beginning to feel lightheaded.

"Am I hallucinating? Because for a dream this has gone on a little too long..." she found herself muttering.

'David' watched her as she slowly, warily, made her way towards him up the walkway. "I understand that the humans from this century still have a hard time accepting things and technologies that go beyond their understanding – but why is it so hard for you to accept something that you've apparently already known about in the first place? Should not really come as _that_ much of a surpise then, should it...? You did say yourself that you know about the TARDIS."

Lydia let out a short, humorless laugh, running her hand through her hair in a nervous manner. "Yeah - from a show on the telly," she deadpanned. "But that's just fiction! It's not real!"

"So you've seen the TARDIS on the telly?" he checked.

"Yes – the TARDIS, you, it's all just... part of a story!"

"Wait, you have seen _me_ on the telly?"

"Yeah," she simply answered. "But... _you_ aren't David Tennant, playing a prank - are you?" She licked her suddenly dry lips. "And... and this is actually bigger on the inside...?"

While breathing out the question, she took another look around the place, her eyes moving from the walls and console to the dome-shaped ceiling, still finding hard to believe what they were seeing, before they came back to a rest on the man watching her. She felt a sudden impulse to check his heartbeat in order to look for some kind of further confirmation, and her hand automatically moved towards his chest, hovering between them.

"I- Sorry, may I check...?" she found herself asking, since her hand was already awkwardly up in the air between them, while a small voice inside her currently very loud mind demanded to know just what she was thinking she was doing.

When he didn't protest, she put her shaking hand on his chest, pressing it gingerly against his pinstriped jacket at first, before applying a little more pressure until the skin of her palm made contact with his heartbeat through the layers of cloth. Several seconds passed in tense silence, until–

_Thump-thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump-thump._

Two seperate pulses drumming faintly against her palm and the tip of her fingers.

Gasping, the young woman pulled her hand away, staggering back and almost tripping over her own feet in the process. She stared at the man in front her with wide, startled eyes.

"Holy shit..."

 


	4. Chapter 4

_[Previously:]_

_Two separate pulses drumming against her palm and the tip of her fingers._

_Gasping, the young woman pulled her hand away, staggering back and almost tripping over her own two feet in the process. She stared at the man in front her with wide, startled eyes._

_"Holy shit..."_

* * *

Lydia felt her own heart pounding madly at the discovery. Her _single_ heart, in contrast to his–

She couldn't even bring herself to think it out loud in her own head.

"This–... You–..."

She was speechless.

The redhead felt her legs turn to jelly as the lightheadedness increased, the blood rushing from her head to her wildly beating heart, and she had to support herself on the railing that framed the walkway leading up to the console.

"Woah, easy there," she dimly heard Not-David's voice calling out to her, and the next moment the man was suddenly beside her, one arm around her shoulder as he supported her. "Now that's not exactly the reaction I expected," he commented as he lead the pale faced woman towards the jump seat next to the console, unwittingly breaching one of his own conditions on her getting to see the TARDIS.

"Sorry, just a bit of a shock," she heard herself faintly replying while she was gently pushed into the worn leather seat. "And I haven't really eaten much," she absentmindedly added, not quite registering what she was saying, her mind still numbed by the shock.

She stared unseeingly ahead, not really taking in what her eyes were resting on, until something yellow suddenly filled the majority her vision. Blinking, Lydia focused on it and realised Not-David was holding out a banana to her.

When she simply stared at it, not making any move to take it from him, the man prompted, "Here, eat this." He shook it once in front of her face. "No really, it'll help! Right energy boosters, bananas!"

Finally taking the offered fruit from him, Lydia just kept staring at it in her hand, perplexed with everything.

"Go on. Eat it," he encouraged once more.

Peeling the banana with shaking hands, following his suggestion on auto-pilot, the young woman did as she was told and bit into the fruit. She ate it mechanically, not knowing if she wanted to laugh or splutter at the absurdity of the situation she was finding herself in. So she did neither.  
Once she finished the fruit, she sat back and closed her eyes, letting her head rest on the backrest of the seat, still feeling a little lightheaded. When her neck came in contact with the leather, she noticed that it was damp with a fine layer of cold sweat.

This couldn't really be happening, could it? This was... it was _impossible_! None of this should be real, it was just fiction! So how the hell could she be sitting here, in the TARDIS, eating bananas the Doctor gave her?!

Oh.

Right. _The Doctor._

If everything else had been rea– well, _happened_ , then there was no denying that he really might be the Doctor, now was there...? Still, calling him that, even just in her mind, was... surreal.

_'Am I dreaming?'_ she asked herself again. It sure as hell felt way too long and detailed for a dream, not to mention quite physical as well, what with actually having felt hungry, tired, cold and a little queasy just now. Did hallucinations usually feel this physical and long and detailed? She wasn't sure, it wasn't like she had ever really hallucinated before.

She almost let out a bitter laugh at that absurd thought; _'Not sure if I'm losing my mind, since I've never lost it before, so I can't tell if it feels this way. Ha, yeah!'_

Ugh. Sarcasm wasn't really helping right now.

So even if she _were_ hallucinating, there wasn't really much she could do about it, could she? All she could do was wait and see if it would go away, or at least lessen with time or something... She guessed she'd just have to handle it the way she had handled the shock and panic the night before; just focus on functioning and what was going on in the here and now, the rest could be dealt with later. Thinking on the possible implications behind the reasons of why she might be experiencing all this, was just a little too much with everything else right now.

She'd just have to try telling the rational part of her brain to shut up for a bit, and take things at face-value for the moment, so that she could act and function. She should be able do that, right?

When she opened her eyes again after taking a few deep breaths several minutes later, she sat up straight, feeling less lightheaded and shaky now with her heart having calmed down. She noticed the Doctor (God, it was bizarre thinking of him as that) was leaning back against the console, watching her.

"Better now?" he inquired.

"A bit, yeah..." she replied, eyes trained awkwardly on her lap. She wasn't really sure how to act. "Sorry about that."

"No problem. I'm just a little confused about your reactions... You agreed on some detailed answers in exchange for showing you the TARDIS?"

Lydia nodded hesitantly, feeling some nervousness return.

"Good. See, what I don't understand, is that you seem to know about me – yet you find it hard, shocking even, to believe I actually exist. Now that, in itself, might not be all that strange, considering there are many people out there who believe me to be just a myth or legend, so of course actually meeting me would feel a little surreal to them. Thing is," he paused, his dark eyes fixed on hers when she looked up, "You seem to know a little too much, too many personal details about me to just be one of those people. You recognised me without me even having introduced myself, claimed to have seen me on the telly – and yet you said you mistook me for someone else, an actor? Some 'Mr. Tennant', was it?"

Lydia nodded again when he raised his brows questioningly at her.

"Now _that_ doesn't make very much sense."

"Exactly!" she agreed. "Because the Doctor is not supposed to be real! He's just a fictional character from a TV show, played by an actor! So how can there be two hearts beating in your chest? How can this," she threw her arms out, gesturing at their surroundings, "Be actually bigger on the inside?!" she exclaimed agitatedly.

Ah, so much for trying to tell the rational part of her brain to shut up...

He stared at her for a moment, before standing a bit straighter and crossing his arms with a sniff. "Tell me more about this TV show then."

Lydia tried calming herself again, freaking out wasn't going to help. _'Just roll with it'_ , she reminded herself. Letting out a deep breath, she gathered her thoughts for a moment.  
"Okay, so... It's a TV show about, well... _you_ , your life, travelling through time and space with companions..." She paused, before admitting, "I, uhm, I really don't know how to go about this..." It was just too weird.

"That's fine, let's just talk through it step by step. So it's about me? As you see me now?"

"About all of... your incarnations, actually..."

That made him blink in surprise. "What?"

"Well... It started many years ago with the first older looking Doctor and his granddaughter coming to earth with the TARDIS," she began, not noticing the switch in personal pronoun, "Then continued the adventures with the following incarnations and people he traveled with. Uhm... The show had been on hiatus for a while, before being revived and moving on with Chris–, I mean, the Ninth Doctor and Rose, which is where I actually began watching it, and, uh... Yeah..."  
She realised she had started rambling a little, stating random facts, not knowing what to say.

God, this was one of the weirdest and most awkward conversations she'd ever had.

When he just stared at her without replying, she used his silence to add, "See, that's why I'm having such a hard time with all this; it's just a sci-fi story, it's _fiction_!"

The silence stretched for several more seconds before he finally spoke again. "That's one of the strangest stories I have heard. Not _the_ strangest, mind, but still up there at the top..."

Lydia could see his tongue touching his teeth through his parted lips, while he watched her with a contemplative look. The sight was so familiar, it was a little hard not to fall back to just seeing David Tennant in him.

"Okay, let's just assume I believe you for the moment – though I do wonder where the people from your universe would have this knowledge about my life from," he remarked with his left eyebrow raised. "Still, for the sake of continuing this conversation, let's just assume it's true. There is still the question of how you got here; where is the device you would have used to travel through the Void? There is no denying you have done that, seeing how you're bathed in Void particles, and with the rift activity the TARDIS picked up here," he stated. "But be it accident or deliberate, I meant it when I said that cracking the dimensional walls of the universe is nothing to be taken lightly. This can cause some serious consequences – even if it admittedly looks like the breach here has been somehow closed without having seemingly done too much damage. Still, who knows where else the walls might have been cracked? Or what it might have done to your home universe?"

Lydia frowned at that. What did he mean...? Could something have happened to her home? (Well, should she really be in a different universe and not just hallucinating, that is. _'Come on, don't think about that right now'_ , she reminded herself once again.)

The Doctor (still weird to call him that in her mind) let his words sink in for a moment, before continuing; "So, I wonder: where is that device now?"

When it became clear that he was expecting an answer, Lydia shrugged her shoulders. "I have no idea what device you're even talking about." At the man's rather unbelieving look, she added, "No really! I'm telling you, I just caught sight of that strange light in the wall and... well..." She hesitated, feeling a blush colour her cheeks. "I sort of just... poked my hand into it...?" she finished with a wince, knowing how stupid that must sound.

That statement earned her an incredulous look.  
She had always known her curiosity might get her into trouble one day – she'd just never expected it to be anything like... well, _this_.

"You just poked your–" he spluttered indignantly, before seeming to gather his thoughts. "You didn't step on anything that looked like a device, or a mat, or anything like that? Didn't touch anything else or notice anything around you?"

"Uhm, no... Not that I was aware of, at least...? There was just the light in the wall."

A deep frown settled on Dav–, the Doctor's face at that. "But that isn't possible! How could you have travelled through the Void without a method of transport?!"

Lydia just shrugged again helplessly at that. "You're really asking the wrong person here..."

After staring at her with that incredulous look for several more seconds, he began pacing, running a hand through his spiky hair. "The worst about this is that it you actually appear to be genuinely honest!" he muttered.

Okay... And that was bad?

"But that shouldn't be possible! It just can't be!" he claimed, gesticulating wildly.

_Ah._

"Welcome to my world," she couldn't resist mumbling in response, which earned her another look.

He kept on pacing in front of her, muttering a few unintelligible things, until there was a sudden movement on the small monitor at the console in front of Lydia. The display on the screen had changed and the Doctor stopped in front of it, bending forward while checking it.

"The TARDIS finished taking scans and collecting data on the remaining energy signatures from the breach... Good." He studied the screen for some more seconds, before muttering, "Now just to figure out what to do with you until she's done analysing it..."

As he turned around to face her again, Lydia noticed a lever behind him switching position, and then the sudden sound of the door they had left open slamming shut startled her as well as the Doctor. He wheeled around, just as the glowing tubes in the column at the center of the console (Lydia thought she rememberd it being called the time rotor) began moving up and down, and a slightly different version of the wheezing, groaning sound she knew from the show resounded, but still sounding familiar enough to recognise it.

"What are you doing?!" the Doctor shouted at the column. He reached for the monitor and seemed to check something as the display changed again.

Lydia yelped in surprise when a sudden jolt went through the place, almost knocking her off the seat. What the hell was going on?!

"No, no, no, no!" the man shouted again, while making a grab for the lever. "Oh no you _don't_!" He seemed to be trying to pull the lever back down, but did not succeed. "Stop that, Old Girl!"

The shaking increased, and Lydia held on to the edge of the jump seat in order not to fall off it, feeling a little freaked out with the sudden shaking and wheezing sound. This couldn't really mean what she thought it did, could it...?

A victorious "HA!" came from the Doctor, followed by the jolting and the sound stopping again. When Lydia straightened herself, she saw that he had finally managed to pull the lever down.

"That's better..." He once more checked the screen, before flipping a small switch, turning a bigger one and pulling at something Lydia couldn't really identify. "Now be a good girl and bring us back," he said while pushing the lever up again.

Lydia had expected the jolting to start again, but it didn't. Neither was there any wheezing, replacing the quiet pulsating sound currently reverberating though the room. Apparently that wasn't what was supposed to happen, since the Doctor frowned and looked up at the unmoving time rotor.

"What's wrong with you? Hey?"

He tried the lever a few more times with unchanging results, before raising his hand and simply thumping the column with his fist. When the tubes inside still didn't move, he got busy with the console again, trying different things, muttering all the while under his breath.

Lydia watched him dance around the console for some minutes, completely bewildered with it all, not knowing what to make of this.

"Have we moved somewhere...?" she asked uncertainly.

"Yes, she's brought us into the Vortex," he replied, sounding distracted. There was a grumble after a moment from where he stood hidden from view behind the column, followed by a whacking sound. "Fine, have it your way." He reappeared in her line of sight, glaring at the time rotor. "I'll just have to to short-circuit you then if you refuse to behave."  
He continued glaring at it in a threatening manner (Lydia had the sudden impression of a battle of wills at that sight), before seemingly remembering the redhead was still there, as he abruptly turned to face her. "Right, sorry 'bout that. She chooses her moments to be petulant."

Lydia was still working on taking in his earlier statement; they had actually left Earth? For real?

He studied her for a moment while she was looking around with slightly widened eyes. "Well! You wanted to 'take a long shower' earlier, didn't you?"

The redhead blinked in surprise at the sudden and complete change of topic. He remembered that comment?

The Doctor sighed, rubbing his eye. "It'll take me a bit to work on her before we can go back. Might as well make use of the time," he commented, giving her a quick once-over. "I suppose you'd want some clean clothes as well? Doesn't make much sense, getting clean just to get into dirty clothing again, does it?"

"Uh..." Lydia muttered unintelligently, completely thrown off track with the turn of events. She self-consciously ran a hand through her still damp hairline, thanks to the cold sweat earlier. Was she actually looking dirty...?

"Come on then," he said, already walking towards a hallway she spotted as she got up from the jump seat to follow him. "And don't wander off! Stay right behind me," he called over his shoulder.

Lydia simply went after him, feeling a little overwhelmed with the whole situation. They walked in silence for the most part, and she couldn't help feeling a little disappointed that any doors they passed where closed, so she couldn't take a peek into the rooms behind them. After several turns and hallways she completely lost her orientation and just made sure not to lose sight of the Doctor's back in front of her. The realisation of just _how much_ bigger the Police Box was on the inside, was a little mind-boggling.

Some minutes later she found him standing in front of an open doorway. Coming to a stop next to him, she gaped at the sight of what was very obviously the wardrobe room; clothes in all shapes and colours were hanging from twisting hanging rails on several floors that could be reached by a spiral staircase, with aisles in between, suggesting that it went deeper than could be seen.

"Casual wear can be found up to floor three upstairs, and underwear should be on the second floor downstairs – I'd recommend looking on the right side," he informed her matter-of-factly.

"Right..." Lydia muttered once she regained her composure somewhat. Hesitantly she made her way towards the staircase, the whole situation feeling more than just a bit surreal.

All those colours were a little distracting in the beginning, but after a few moments she spotted a section with shirts and pullovers in one of the aisles and made a beeline for it. Going through the clothes with her hands, she soon picked out a simple dark blue formfitting t-shirt and after another minute or two she also found a warm looking zipped hoodie in a nice pine green that seemed to be about her size, as she held it against her upper body.  
Satisfied with her findings (deciding to just stick with the jeans she was currently wearing, not wanting to have to search all too long to find something for her wide hips), she made her way down the stairs to look for some fresh underwear, trying desperately not to think about the fact that the Doctor was still standing near the doorway keeping an eye on her. That search took her a little less longer than the previous one, and she soon made her way back up with the items slung over her arm.

Seeing Lydia approaching him looking apparently finished, he turned on the spot and left the wardrobe room again with her at his heels. They didn't walk as long as before, and after some turns the Doctor opened a door and went into a room, and just as Lydia was about to follow him in, he stepped back out again, nearly running into her.

"Wrong one. Should be this one then..." he mumbled as he walked past her to open a door on the opposite wall, sticking his head in – just to remove it again a second later and close the door again. "Nope," he declared, popping the 'p'. "Not that one either. That leaves..." He went to the only other door a little further down the hallway they were in, leaving a bemused Lydia to follow him. "There we are," he declared with an inviting gesture into the room.

The redhead slipped past him and found herself in a slightly larger than average bathroom with white tiles decorating the walls. Taking a quick look around, she spotted a corner bathtub, with a shelf holding bathing supplies and toiletries next to it, and in the opposite corner a shower with another shelf full of towels. On the other side of the room was a toilet and a sink with a mirror cabinet. Once she had inspected the room, she turned to face the Doctor, who was still standing in the doorway.

"Feel free to take your time. And _no_ exploring!" he added in a firmer tone. "The TARDIS will let me know the instant you leave this room," he told her with a serious look. "Don't want you getting lost."

After confirming her understanding, he left her alone and Lydia closed the door. For a moment she simply looked again around the room, a little lost as to what to do with herself. Finally she put the fresh clothes she had picked on the closed toilet lid, set her messenger back on the ground next to it, and then went to the bathtub, turning the water tap on. Sure, she had wanted a shower before, but the tub just looked way too inviting, and a bath would be a good way to try and relax a little.

While waiting for the tub to fill, she chose some supplies from the shelf, finding everything she could possbly need, and more. That really was quite convenient. Reminded her a bit of being in a hotel.  
After preparing a towel in a way that she could reach it from within the tub, she undressed and removed the numerous pins from her updo, her hair falling in thick cherry red waves over her back, before she finally sank into the warm water. An appreciative sigh escaped her lips, and she closed her eyes as she leant back against the porcelain.

For a long time she simply lay there, enjoying the feeling of the hot water relaxing her body and soothing her mind. Her jumbled thoughts finally had a chance to regain some order in the peaceful silence (well, if one ignored the subtle humming in the background).

It was a little easier to think more clearly now. She still had some trouble with actually believing what was happening around her, but at least she came to the conclusion that it would be doing her no good to continually question her sanity or state of awareness. She'd just drive herself into a corner that way, so she was going to try to just take things as they appeared to be from now on.  
Everything seemed and felt real enough, after all, so even if it _was_ all just hallucination she would have no way of telling it from reality, anyway – so what the hell.

Somehow that decision seemed to lift a mental weight from her, that she hadn't even realised had began to settle in.

* * *

Lydia wasn't sure how long exactly she had stayed inside the bathroom since she hadn't checked the time on her phone, but she was sure it had been an hour and a half at the very least, what with taking her time in the tub, dressing, drying her long hair and pinning it up again, and all.

She had been standing in the hallway right in front of the door to the bathroom for some minutes now, thinking she was supposed to wait for the Doctor to get her, since he'd told her not to explore and that he'd know when she left it. But when he still didn't turn up after another five minutes, she began to wonder. He couldn't really expect her to have remembered the way, could he...?

Just as she was considering if it would be wise to simply try her luck on her own, his voice sounded over a loudspeaker she made out at the end of the hallway.

"I told the TARDIS to lead you back to the control room, just follow the hallway to the left of the door."

"Right..." she found herself saying into the empty hallway, before turning left and walking down as instructed. During her walk she noticed that - other than when she had been walking with the Doctor before - whenever there was fork leading to more than just one corridor, now there was only the door to one of them opened, when before it had been all of them. At one point a door slid shut right in front of her nose, causing Lydia to jump back with a startled yelp. She noticed another one opening on her right and made sure to go through it quickly, as if it could shut any second on her, a little spooked out from nearly having her nose caught earlier.

It felt like she was walking for quite a bit longer than she remembered doing with the Doctor, but she finally ended up at an open doorway through which she could see the control room. Feeling relieved, she walked up to the grating and spotted pinstriped legs peeking out from under the console, with cables and various tools scattered around them.

"Didn't get lost then?" his muffled voice inquired.

"Apparently," she replied. "Though I think I was close to losing my nose to a door at one point..."

She got a nondescript grunt in respone to her comment. When it became clear that he was going to stay under the console, Lydia sat down on the grating with her legs crossed, watching him work in silence. After a while a thought crossed her mind; she hadn't seen nor heard of any companion being around... That made her realise that she didn't even know what point of time it was for him. (She silently congratulated herself on taking the situation and her line of thinking at face value as planned.)

That realisation wouldn't leave her alone, and after another moment she found herself asking, "So, are you travelling alone?"

When he didn't reply for a while, she began to think that he hadn't heard her, or that he might be ignoring the question, until he came out from under the console, pulling a cable along with him.

"Yeah," he finally answered while sitting up. With another quick glare at the time rotor, he added, "And I intend to keep it that way."

Oh.

He turned his head to face her. "It shouldn't take that much longer now. Once we're back, we'll work something out for you." With these words he pointed his sonic screwdriver at the end of the cable, removing the sheathing, and began tinkering with the inner parts.

Lydia blinked at his remark. Her fingers absentmindedly started fiddling with the edge of her messenger bag which was resting next to her, feeling her stomach tense with uneasiness. "So... are you just going to drop me off again then...?"

She didn't like the way her voice trembled every so slightly towards the end, betraying her uneasiness. Would he really do that? And if he did, what the hell was she going to do? It wasn't like she had any place to go to, or any _one_ , for that matter...

"I've been thinking about it," the Doctor admitted, and Lydia felt her stomach drop with a growing sense of fear – and disappointment. "It seems to be the most logical way of action. I would have the TARDIS create some documentation for you to blend in, of course, probably also make sure to get you some financial basis - can't have you starving or freezing on the streets at night, now can we? I could even help you look for some place to stay at, if you'd like that?" He looked up from his work and held her gaze for a brief moment.

Lydia wondered if the increasingly troubled emotions she was feeling were reflected on her face, because he was quick to avert his eyes again and ramble on.

"I don't know how long it will take the TARDIS to analyse all that data and work it out, tears in the fabric of time and space are tricky business to being with, but when it concerns a different universe it's a whole different matter. Should we find out some further information I'll pop around for you again, of course. I mean, it's very unlikely to work out a way back home for you, but with the unknown cicrumstances of your appearance, who knows? It's a _very_ big 'who knows' though, mind. Until then, I think, it would be best to get you settled in any case."

She wondered if he thought his words to be soothing. If he was just trying to cheer her up and keep her optimistic, having seen the look on her face after sharing his plan with her, from the increasingly quick way he said them.

So she'd have to start a complete new life all on her own? Without any friends or family, anyone at all by her side? And she'd have to give her old life up, just like that?

The very idea was scary.

She remembered how desolate she'd felt, standing in her dad's flat yet finding herself in completely foreign surrounding. Would it feel like that at every place that used to be familiar now? And would she end up seeing a familiar face one day, just to realise she was meeting a complete stranger?  
Feeling suddenly very lost and vulnerable, Lydia found herself swallowing back a lump in her throat. Right now this man sitting opposite her was the only thing even remotely familiar to her, the only person she actually knew in some way. Once he'd leave her behind, she would be literally alone in this world.

Now wasn't that a happy thought.

She also felt stupid and selfish for being disappointed about not getting to stay with him; why would he want her to accompany him, after all? It wasn't like she had done anything special or useful when they met, she was more like one of the many occurring problems he had to solve, and once he fixed it, he'd just move on, like he alyways did. It shouldn't have been so surprising to her, really. It wasn't like he had any kind of obligations towards her, after all.

But that wasn't the only reason for her disappointment; she realised there'd been a growing hope at the back of her mind that - if this was all truly real - she might end up finding a way back home if she just stayed with him and the TARDIS. A hope she had only just truly realised to be there, and which she already found to be taken from her again.

Lydia noticed her hands had become a little shaky again with all these thoughts and emotions running through her – and the implications of her situation were barely beginning to sink in. She tried her best to fight a rising sense of panic at the prospect of being left behind to start a new life, all alone.

A painful outcry from the Doctor startled her out of her glum thoughts. When she looked up she saw him sucking on a finger that had apparently been hurt, before noticing sparks flying from behind him under the console. With a frown he dove back under it, taking the cable he had been working on with him.

A sudden jolt went through the TARDIS again, almost knocking Lydia on her back. When the time rotor could be heard moving again, Lydia heard the Doctor exclaim a muffled curse.

"What are you doing?! I haven't even finished reconnecting the–"

He was cut off when the shaking increased, the lights on the walls flickering, now really knocking Lydia flat on her back. It seemed it wasn't enough that she was put through all the emotional roller coasters; now we she was on a physical one, as well! She crawled towards the railing on her knees and hands and held on to it, supporting herself. Looking up, she noticed the Doctor had gotten up and was desperately trying to work on the console, while trying to hold on to it at the same time.

"Stop it! There're still pathways disconnected!" His hand sped from buttons to switches, trying all sorts of things, but the jolting continued and the time rotor kept moving despite the lights around them flickering madly. "You're going to knock yourself out!" he cried out in warning, reaching for the monitor and quickly checking it. "And these aren't event the coordinates I've set?!" he added, his voice high pitched with indignation.

With a final jolt that threw the Doctor on the jump seat and send another bout of sparks flying from the console, the ship eventually came to a halt. The relief Lydia felt at that was only short lived, as the lights on the walls went completely out shortly after. It was still bright enough to see, though, thanks to some faint light coming from under the grating, the coral like struts, and the time rotor. The young woman looked around with wide eyes, noticing smoke drifting up from under the console where the Doctor had been working at, the stench of burnt plastic filling the room.

She heard the man getting up from the jump seat and saw him move to the monitor. "Where have you taken us, Old Girl...?"

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first started this project and had plans to let readers influence it, I decided to use a one-sheet adventure for tabletop roleplaying as basic plotline. I thought this might give me some good opportunities to let people decide on actions and influence the story, the way a game master lets the players decide on the progress of the adventure. There will, of course, still be a lot of my own improvisation and elaboration, as well as some changes – the base is still built upon that adventure, though.  
> So here's a
> 
>  **Disclaimer for the following chapters up onto CH 11:** The basic plotline and background of the world are based on the one-sheet roleplaying adventure _"Das Ende von Eden"_ created by Stefan Urabl.

_[Previously:]_

_She heard the man getting up from the jump seat and saw him move to the monitor. "Where have you taken us, Old Girl...?"_

* * *

The Doctor's attention was fixed on the screen, while Lydia got up on her legs, a little wobbly on them from the adrenaline rush of the TARDIS version of am uncontrolled roller coaster ride. She took another look around the dimly-lit control room, taking in the smoke drifting from the console, the burnt smell making her wrinkle her nose, silently urging her madly beating heart to calm down.

What the _heck_ had happened?

A startled yelp escaped her throat when all of the sudden something hit her on the head.

Instinctively crouching down and holding the spot that had been hit, she cautiously looked up to see what had attacked her. An oxygen mask was dangling lazily from the ceiling, just at the spot where her head had been seconds ago. Letting out a breath she had been holding, she slowly straightened up again, her other hand moving to her chest where her heart was back to beating wildly. God damn it, that had startled the life out of her...

When she heard the Doctor sighing heavily a few seconds later, she returned her attention to him. She noticed another mask dangling next to him, with a safe distance to his head. _'Of course,_ he _doesn't get hit...'_ she thought surly, rubbing the top of her head and shooting the mask that had hit her a dirty look.

"She's on backup power. Enough to keep her basic systems running for now, but not to dematerialise," the Doctor informed her absentmindedly. "Just what were you thinking, Girl, jumping with pathways still disconnected...?" The last bit was said more quietly with a searching look up the now barely glowing time rotor, before his expression seemed to darken a little.

The man went around the console, passing Lydia without a look, and crouched down in front of the opened part he had been working at before, waving some of the slowly dissipating smoke away with his hand. He pointed his sonic screwdriver at it (whether to scan something or just to use its blue light to see better, Lydia was left to wonder) and took a look at the damage. After a moment he went to another part of the console and removed the cover panel there as well after using his screwdriver on it.

Lydia couldn't help feeling a little like she was being purposefully ignored. Not knowing how she could help, she resorted to wrapping her arms around herself and simply watching the Doctor check the degree of damage in tense silence. She wasn't sure how to deal with the sudden change of events, still feeling rattled by the earlier prospect of being left behind on her own.

When the silence began to feel uncomfortable, she was about to ask if there was anything she could do, maybe at least hold a torch for him or something, when the Doctor groaned.

"Oh, and _of course_ the fluid links had to run out of mercury, too!" He pulled at his hair, making it stick out even more wildly. "Why is it always the mercury?!"

"Can you repair the damage?" she asked uncertainly, not really sure what he was talking about.

"Yeah," he replied after a few seconds, giving a sniff. "But I'll need to stock up on mercury, otherwise the TARDIS won't be able transfer any power generated from the local atmosphere, and the backup supply won't last forever either. There's only so much that can be done without certain circuits getting power."

It was hard to tell how he felt about it since his voice sounded rather detached after his short outburst about the mercury (whatever that was).

The room filled with silence again after that, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Lydia wondered just how bad their situation was. Would it mean they were actually stranded if he didn't find this mercury stuff? Or could the TARDIS still be repaired some way?

"Anyway!"

His voice broke the silence after a while and pulled her out of her thoughts, carrying a more energetic tone as he went over to one of the coral like struts and took off his long coat that had been slung over it, putting it on.

It was only then that Lydia realised he had been in just his brown pinstripe suit ever since she had returned from taking a bath.

"Best check out where we are and if maybe we'll be lucky enough to find some mercury. And then take it from there." He gave her a long look while adjusting the lapels of his coat. "I'd rather not leave you alone in the TARDIS, especially not in her current state. Think you're up for some exploring?"

Lydia stared at him in surprise. Hadn't he been talking about intending to travel alone not all too long ago? Then again, maybe he didn't have another choice now if it really wasn't safe for her to stay in the TARDIS. _'Or maybe he just doesn't trust you with it,'_ a voice in the back of her mind offered.

"Well?" he inquired with raised brows when she still hadn't answered after a few seconds.

"Uhm. I guess?"

Her mind was having a little trouble keeping up with everything and the changing emotions of the day. She wasn't even sure if she actually _was_ up for it, so shortly after fighting the rising panic about being left behind on her own, and then the... crash? (Had that even been a crash?) But there wasn't much of a choice right now, was there?

"Off we go then!"

Lydia watched the man walk to the door and open it, poking his head out and taking a quick look around, before actually stepping out. The door was left open, waiting for her to step through it and follow him into the unknown.

That was the moment it truly hit her that they had actually _left Earth_ earlier when he'd told her they'd been in the Vortex; that all the jolting had meant they had really _moved_ and...

_'Traveled through time and space...'_

She swallowed, feeling nervousness bubbling up, accompanied by some traitorous excitement.  
Where could they have ended up? Back on Earth, just in another time? Or even a different planet?

_'Is this really happening?'_

Trying to calm all those thoughts starting to run wild again, she took a deep breath before finally moving to follow the Doctor out of the spaceship.

Lydia hadn't realised that she'd actually been expecting some kind of surreal view, until she stepped out of the blue Police Box and found that the view that greeted her made her feel strangely... disappointed, what with looking perfectly ordinary.  
The redhead turned around, taking the surroundings in from all sides. The TARDIS had ended up on a flat area at what appeared to be the middle of a small mountain. To the left of the box was the mountain face reaching up into an orange sky, and to the right there was a beautiful view of a valley, with rays of a sun hanging low in the sky peeking out between some more mountains and groups of conifers, bathing the surface of a sea in golden light.

While it was quite the postcard picture and beautiful in its own right, the view wasn't very unusual, reminding her of the Alps.

"Are we on Earth?" she voiced her thoughts. (Boy, did it feel strange to ask that.)

"No, the coordinates belonged to a whole different constellation."

Oh. Okay.

At hearing his voice, Lydia turned her head to look at the Doctor and caught him licking his index finger. He held it into the air for a brief moment, before putting it into his mouth and briefly sucking on it.

"This planet has a very similar atmosphere to Earth's, though," he informed her, rolling his tongue around in his mouth and frowning. "Hmm. Odd."

Lydia stared at him for a moment in bemusement (could he seriously tell that just from tasting the air?) before blinking and tearing her eyes from his mouth. "What's odd?"

"I thought I knew all planets with Earth-like environmental conditions around this era and part of the universe, especially those that have been terraformed like this one appears to be..." He finally lost his frown and shrugged, a grin replacing the previously confused expression. "Well then! Whole new planet to explore!"

With that he shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers and began marching down a mountain pass that the TARDIS doors (now closed, Lydia noticed) were facing.

When Lydia didn't follow immediately, still a little dazed with everything and the sudden change in his mood, he turned around, walking backwards.

"What are you waiting for?" He beckoned her to follow with a tilt of his head, before turning around again.

It took the Doctor disappearing from sight around a bend of the mountain for her feet to finally start moving.

* * *

They had been walking down the pass for around half an hour, the valley coming closer ever so slowly, and now that Lydia had gotten over the initial surprise of their situation (the surroundings looking rather normal probably helped quite a bit with that), she found her thoughts wandering back to the conversation before the TARDIS had acted up, and with that also to the Doctor's timeline. (She purposefully skipped over the part where he had told her that he planned on leaving her behind. She wasn't quite up to face that prospect again just yet.)

She realised she didn't know what he had already been through and what was still to come for him, so she wasn't sure who and what would be safe to mention.  
Thinking about which knowledge might or might not be a safe topic, made her realise that she actually - quite probably, should things really be like in the show (she tried to ignore the weirdness of _that_ thought) - knew about his future. And that opened a whole new can of worms that she was not ready to think about, her mind already spinning with only considering the implications of that, so she was quick to dismiss it again and shove these thoughts to the back of her mind.  
That was just a bit too much right now. (To be honest, the whole day had been a bit too much.)

Still, the question of who his last companion had been wouldn't leave her alone, so she'd at least know around which point of his personal timeline they were.

She worked up her courage.

"So... You said you're travelling alone..." When no reaction came from the Doctor, who was walking a little ahead of her, she bravely continued, "May I ask who you trav–"

"I noticed you have a tiny bit of an accent." He cast a glance at her over his shoulder. "Barely noticeable, really, but still there. You aren't a Brit, are you, or at least haven't been for very long?"

Surprised at the interruption and complete change of topic, Lydia blinked at him. _'Well... Point taken.'_ He very obviously didn't want to talk about his companions, so she swallowed the question, telling herself she'd try again at another time.

"Uh, partly, actually... Grew up in Germany for the most part, though."

"Oh, Germany!" He turned around then, the tail of his coat flapping around his legs with the motion, and kept on walking backwards while facing her now. "I was there at the fall of the Berlin Wall! _Fantastic_ atmosphere, I tell you, all these people celebrating their freedom in the streets, complete strangers crying in each other's arms... Ohh, now that was a sight! You should have been there, really! Although," his eyes roamed over her face, "I don't think you were even born then?"

"As a matter of fact, I was."

"Really now?" His eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline.

"Yes, _really_."

Lydia tried not to roll her eyes, giving him a sarcastic smile. That topic was prone to annoy her rather quickly, as it was an old joke she often found herself to be the butt of. Especially her best friend Wolfgang got a kick out of it whenever she was asked for her ID when they went clubbing or to the cinema, even more so when she was compared to the photo on it very sceptically, teasing her about it for at least the following ten minutes.  
But the worst was dealing with clients at work sometimes, asking to speak to a 'proper employee', immediately mistaking her for just a trainee.

She blamed it on her lack of height – others on her youthful facial features.

"Shouldn't you of all people know not to judge someone's age just by their appearance?" Ugh, that came out sounding a bit too much like pouting...

"True enough," he replied. "So I assume you're around your early twenties then?"

"Twenty-four."

"Hmm... And here I thought _I_ looked young for my age," he teased with a twinkle in his eyes.

Lydia gaped at the unexpected cheek, to which the Doctor simply grinned, before turning around once more and coming to a sudden stop, cutting her off the remark she had been about to make.

"Aha!" He pointed at something around the bend of the mountain. "Civilisation!"

Lydia came to a stop next to him, following his outstretched hand with her eyes. She could just about make out what looked like group of houses in the distance, a village perhaps?

"Are we supposed to _walk_ all the way there...?" she asked, already not liking the idea very much. It looked rather far away.

The Doctor gave her a look. "Well, you could always try rolling down," he suggested drily. "How else do you suggest we get there?" With that he simply continued walking.

Lydia's shoulders sagged at the prospect. For a very short moment the conversation had made her forget the situation she was in; that she was walking down a mountain pass on a foreign planet she was apparently stranded on (with a supposedly fictional, time-travelling alien, no less). But now she was reminded of it, the easy atmosphere the bantering had created dissipating again.

The redhead moved to catch up with him again. She just hoped it wasn't quite as far away as she feared.

* * *

It had taken about another hour and a half to get off the mountain, with a short rest she had to ask for. Lydia wasn't sure how long exactly they had been walking, since she hadn't checked her mobile phone for the time, but she was sure it must have been at least around three hours now since they had left the TARDIS. Even though the terrain had been rather easy to walk on, her legs were beginning to ache in protest. Her body wasn't really used to hiking. And damn, she was thirsty. At least the sun had set a while ago, the evening chill cooling her hot skin a little.  
She was slowly but surely starting to feel quite exhausted, though.

They'd been walking through the valley for a while now, passing forests and a few more mountains in the distance, and she really hoped the Doctor knew which way they were supposed to go. He had rambled about the flora and fauna around them on occasion, stating random facts which Lydia hadn't always really listened to, to be honest, but was still glad about. His talking distracted her from straining her ears to the unfamiliar nightly sounds of the forests around them; she had to admit she was a little spooked by their dark surroundings.

Conversation had been limited to these factual ramblings and a few question about them from her, no more attempts to go for more personal topics. She wondered if earlier had only been to distract her from her question and anything personal about him.

Nor had there been any more questions about the TV show and her knowledge from it so far. She tried not to read too much into that fact, but it still left her feeling a little uncertain as to how she was supposed to act around the Doctor. While he hadn't been outright rude to her so far - well, apart from the time she had believed him to be David Tennant - he also wasn't exactly amicable, rather aloof even. And while, in theory, Lydia knew that he didn't have any reason to be all friendly with her - a random stranger that he probably didn't even quite trust - she still had to admit that it didn't feel exactly nice to be kept at distance like that.  
Still, she shouldn't have expected anything else, really.

She realised her thoughts were beginning to run in circles again. Maybe she could do with some real sleep to reboot her brain, so to say, she really wasn't feeling quite like herself at the moment.

The Doctor was currently quiet again, the only sounds being their steps in the grass and the occasional animal sounds coming from nearby forests. At least Lydia thought they came from animals.

She slowed down after a few minutes when it felt like she was about to get a cramp in her right calf. "Doctor? Could we maybe take a short rest?"

The Doctor stopped and turned around to face her. "Again?"

"Sorry, but I need to take a breather for a moment. Human legs, you know," she reminded him with an apologetic smile.

Sighing, he plopped down into the grass. It was really unfair that he didn't seem to be winded at all.

Lydia followed his example, stretching her legs and gently massaging her calves. After a while she let the rest of her body fall into the grass as well, spreading her arms out. There seemed to be a lot more stars in the sky than she could ever remember seeing on Earth. It was quite a breathtaking view, and for a moment she simply lay there, silencing all thoughts, and just took it in.

When something caught her attention at the edge of her field of vision a bit later, she tilted her head back further to see more, before pushing her body up on an elbow to look back properly. "Woah, this is beautiful!"

"Hm?" she heard the Doctor's voice behind her.

"I've never seen polar light with my own eyes before!"

The night sky was streaked with soft green and magenta lights just over the dark edges of a chain of mountains in the direction they had been heading from. Lydia stared at the view in awe; the colours of the lights weren't quite as vibrant as she had seen on some photos, but it was still amazing.

She was pulled out of her wonder by a whirring sound piercing through the quiet of the night, and looked over her shoulder to see the Doctor pointing his sonic screwdriver at the sky. He looked at the readings on the small device and frowned. Then fiddled around with it before taking another scan and checking the results again, his frown deepening.

"Let's move on," he said, getting up on his feet again.

"But... Could I look at it just a bit–"

"Come on!" He was already moving again. "It shouldn't be far anymore, and then you can have a proper rest. Promise!"

Lydia sighed and got up, stretching her legs a little and casting one last glance at the lights before following him once again.

 


	6. Chapter 6

_[Previously:]_

_"Come on!" He was already moving again. "It shouldn't be far anymore, and then you can have a proper rest. Promise!"_

_Lydia sighed and got up, stretching her legs a little and casting one last glance at the lights before following him once again._

* * *

It had taken another good hour to reach the village they had seen from the mountain.

Lydia sighed in relief at the sight of the faint lights ahead of them, her legs and shoulder really aching by now, the latter from the weight of her messenger bag. All she could think about now, was the need of something to drink to relieve her parched throat, and a place to rest her exhausted body on.

At least the rapidly growing fatigue had pushed most of the nagging thoughts to the back of her mind, for the last fifteen minutes she had only been concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping the Doctor's back within sight. Her body was reminding her that she had barely slept the previous night, and that there'd already been quite a bit of walking around before she'd even entered the TARDIS. And all those earlier adrenline rushes seemed to have depleted her body's energy reserves for good. Or at least it felt that way.  
Even the hunger she had felt on occassion throughout the day had faded into the background by now.

When they were near enough to the village to make out details of the buildings, Lydia could see that most of them were made out of wood, the window and door frames richly decorated with carvings standing out in the faint light of some lanterns they passed. Lanterns that didn't look very electrical, she still managed to notice in her tired state. Most of the houses were dark, only the odd window illuminated by a soft light from inside.

Somewhere in the very back of her mind she felt a slight disappointment at being too tired to really care about her surroundings and properly look around, take every detail in, but even that was quick to fade again. It had been a long time since she'd last felt _that_ exhausted.

As they got a little deeper into the village, walking down several alleys, her ears picked up on the faint sound of voices. The Doctor seemed to be walking straight towards the sound, and soon Lydia spotted a slightly larger building in front of which a few people stood, talking.  
Her pulse quickened just the tiniest bit, making her a little more alert to her surroundings. They looked human. Dressed a little oddly in what looked to be tunics, but still very much human looking.

The heads of the villagers turned towards the Doctor and Lydia as they approached, their voices falling silent.

"Hello!" she heard the Doctor's cheery voice greet what she now saw were two men and a woman.

"Hello..." came a stunned sounding reply from one of the men after a brief moment of hesitation.

All three villagers stared at them in apparent surprise.

"Could you maybe tell us where we are? I'm afraid we got a little lost along our journey," the Doctor said, seemingly completely ignoring the people's quite obvious confusion at their presence, which only seemed to grow at his words.

After another stunned second, the man who had replied their greeting seemed to recover himself.

"Would you look at that!" he exclaimed with a growing smile, shooting the other two villagers a quick look. "We have visitors! You must be from one of the outer colonies then, if you have not been around here before?" he asked, giving the Time Lord and redhead a quick once-over.

"Weeeell, I guess you could say that, yeah," the Doctor replied easily.

A grin spread over the villager's face. "Welcome to Greenedge, then!" he exclaimed, giving the Doctor a friendly clap on the shoulder. "You are at the border to the western meadowlands of the Valley. My name is Iwin."

The Doctor returned Iwin's smile. "Pleased to meet you, Iwin. I'm the Doctor and this is Lydia," he introduced them.

There was only the briefest questioning look at the Doctor's name, but it was not commented on. The people gave Lydia a friendly smile in greeting, which she did her best to return, muttering a small "Hello". The other man and the woman were also introduced, but Lydia didn't quite catch their names from where she stood.

"Well then," Iwin continued, "How about we go inside and talk? I shall ask my wife to warm up some leftover soup."

"Oh, thank you, but that's really not necessary–" the Doctor began, not getting very far with his protest before Iwin cut him short.

"No, no, I insist! I am sure you must be hungry and tired from your journey at this time of night," he commented with a glance at Lydia. "Let me at least offer you a place for the night, and maybe you can tell me about your journey and what brings you here? We do not get visitors often, especially none that I have not seen before."

Hadn't it been for the kind tone in his voice and his warm smile, Lydia would have thought there might be a hidden suspicion in the remark, with the way it was worded. But as it was, she wasn't sure if that was the case.

The Doctor studied her for a moment, seeming to consider the offer. "Well... In that case I guess we'll gratefully accept. I do have a promise to keep, after all."

Lydia gave him a small, tired smile, thankful for the prospect of getting some real rest. And something to drink; God, she'd really love something to drink...

Iwin said goodbye to the other two villagers, who had apparently been about to head home, before leading the way into the building.

As they followed him in, the Doctor leaned in close to Lydia and commented in a quiet voice, "All right there? You look positively knackered..."

"I am a bit," she admitted.

"Then why didn't you ask me to slow down if you were that tired?"

She blinked. That was a good question, actually... Why _hadn't_ she asked him to?

Thinking about it, she realised she hadn't wanted to be a bother, since he'd already been so aloof, so she had simply pushed herself and gone along with it.  
Yeah, he might not have looked all too happy when she'd asked for another rest, but he'd still given in without much of a protest, hadn't he? She was sure he would've slowed down if she'd asked him to.

Feeling a little stupid now, she shrugged awkwardly in reply.

When they entered the building, Lydia took a quick look around, noticing it seemed to be some kind of tavern, or something along the lines. There were several tables and chairs standing in one side of the spacious room, and on the other side were several pillows, rugs and furs lying around the floor in front of a stony fireplace, currently occupied by a handful of people. Some of them were chatting, two teenaged looking girls seemed to be knitting and sewing, and a man in a far corner was working on some carving. After a moment the two girls looked up from their work and watched them curiously, pausing in their conversation.

"Come, have a seat while I look for my wife," Iwin called over to them from a table close to the wall that was opposite the relaxed sitting area around the fireplace.

Lydia followed the Doctor to the table, watching Iwin disappear behind a door, and sat down on a short bench standing close the wall, the Doctor choosing a chair on the opposite of the table.  
Not knowing what to say to him after the awkward question earlier, Lydia let her eyes wander over the room, which was dimly lit by the fireplace and a few oil lamps, giving it a cozy atmosphere. The girls at the back of the room kept throwing them curious glances, their conversation a little quieter now.

After several minutes, Iwin returned, setting two artfully formed cups and a jug on the table.

"Here, have a drink," he offered while pouring some dark liquid from the jug into the cups. "The soup is heating up, it will take just a moment."

Ohh, yes, something to drink!

Lydia thanked the man and took the cup standing in front of her, sniffing at the unknown beverage. It smelled sweet. She took a cautious sip, finding that it seemed to be some kind of juice that reminded her of grape juice, just a little sour, but still good. She drained the cup in one hurried go after that, letting out a contented sigh when she put it down again. When she looked up, she found both men watching her with some amusement, and felt her cheeks grow hot. "Sorry... I was a little thirsty..." she mumbled sheepishly.

"Yes, I can see that," Iwin chuckled. "Drink as much as you want," he offered again while refilling her cup.

Lydia didn't quite drain it in one go again, but was still fast to empty it, before shily refilling it once more herself. She felt a little awkward about it, but _ah_ , that felt a lot better now.

The Doctor and Iwin had begun chatting in the meantime. Listening to the conversation with half an ear, Lydia found her eyes drifting to the people at the back of the room, watching them work. The rhytmic movements of their hands were quite hypnotic. As she watched them, with all the juice filling her stomach and the cozy light in the room, she soon found herself becoming quite drowsy.

"So, the Valley lies where exactly...?" she heard the Doctor ask.

Mh, she wondered if it would be terribly impolite to ask for a place to sleep when they had only just met these people... She briefly entertained the idea of simply leaning back against the wall and resting her heavy eyelids for a bit, but that would probably seem a little rude, too, wouldn't it?

"...there have been stories of it, yes, but we never really met any before," Iwin's voice said.

Huh?

Lyida blinked heavily.

Had they changed topics without her noticing? Her attention must be drifting a little there... What had they even been talking about again earlier? Something about the location, and then...? She couldn't quite remember...  
Nor could she really bring herself to care much just then, to be honest. Oh, and there her attention went again...

At some point she felt someone shake her gently on the shoulder, startling her out of a half-sleep she hadn't even realised she had dozed off into. Blinking blearily, she saw the Doctor removing his hand from her shoulder.

"Maybe we'd better get you into a bed, hm? I don't think sleeping on the table would be very comfy."

She nodded and made an agreeing sound, before looking around in some confusion and noticing a woman standing next to the table with two steaming bowls in her hands. The woman placed them on the table and smiled kindly at her.

"Come, dear, I will show you the way."

Lydia got up from the table and bid the men goodnight, following the woman through a door and then up some stairs with heavy legs, barely registering where they were going. They entered a small room with two beds and some other furniture, and the woman asked her if she really didn't want to have some soup first. Lydia declinded, thanking her, and was soon left alone in the room. Stripping down to her t-shirt and panties, only just remembering to remove the pins from her hair too, she climbed into the bed closest to her, only briefly noting how odd the mattress felt, before falling asleep almost instantly.

* * *

Lydia blinked her eyes open and rolled on to her side, catching sight of the grey sky hanging over her dad's little, shared garden outside the window. Great. Another overcast day then, she grumpily thought.

Wait.

Her dad's garden?

She sat up, looking around the room she was in; her guest room in her father's flat in London.

Oh. So it had all just been a dream, after all. Huh.

She got up and went to the kitchen, finding her dad seated at the table, a mug filled with coffee in front of him and a newspaper hiding his face.

"Morning," she greeted and sat down on the other side of the small table.

"Good morning," he replied, not even taking the newspaper down to look at her. Rude.

"I had a really weird dream," she told him, taking a bread roll from a basket on the table and cutting it in half. "There was a TV prank, and David Tennant was there - you know, the actor - only it wasn't the actor but–"

She stopped talking when she caught sight of a photo on the front page of the newspaper her dad was reading while reaching for the butter. It showed her standing with said actor - clad in jeans and t-shirt - with his arm around her in front of the TARDIS, grinning broadly into the camera.

"So it was weird then?" her dad asked.

Only that when he lowered the newspaper, it wasn't her dad – it was the Doctor.

"And here I thought we were having such a good time!"

* * *

Lydia's eyes flew open.

She found herself staring at an unfamiliar wooden ceiling, before sitting up and looking through a likewise unfamiliar room, needing a few seconds to sort her thoughts, feeling utterly confused.

So had that just been a dream? Was she awake now, or still dreaming?

She sat on the bed for several minutes, just looking around and waiting for anything to change or happen. When neither did, she began to feel more assured that she wasn't dreaming anymore. Hopefully.  
Ugh, dreams of waking up were some of the weirdest and most confusing she knew... Good thing she didn't have them very often.

Her thought process was becoming clearer now that she was more awake, and she went through the memories of the last night, or at least the bits she could actually remember. Even feeling more awake now, last night felt quite a bit surreal. She had been so drugged with fatigue and out of it, that she hadn't really been paying attention to anything around her, which left her feeling a little embarrassed. What kind of impression must she have left, dozing off at the table like that – to either man?

The redhead stretched her limbs, still feeling quite groggy despite being awake. Her head was throbbing a little, too. And ohh, having stretched and moving her legs over the edge of the bed, she realised that the muscles in them were pretty sore. And she really had to go to the loo.

Well, wasn't that a bright start into the day.

Sighing, she collected her clothes from the floor and dressed, before making the bed she had slept in. When she finished, she noticed the other bed in the room looked the same as she remembered it, apparently not having been touched at all. Taking in the wooden furnitures in the room, the beds with their odd, lumpy mattresses, she was reminded of how most of the building appeared... well, _oldfashioned_. It made her wonder what sort of era they had ended up at, and if it was comparable to Earth's at all.

Lydia grabbed her messenger bag and left the room; no other way to find that out. Looking around the small hallway, she noticed that it ended in a wall to her right, so she turned left and soon found the stairs she vaguely remembered walking up last night. It felt decidedly weird to wake up in and walk around a completely unfamiliar house.

Arriving downstairs (with a wince thanks to her sore muscles – stairs were not a cool thing right now), she recognised the room they had been in last night, her eyes drawn to the table she had sat (and dozed off) at, now being empty.  
Hearing noises coming from a door near it, she went towards it and knocked softly on the wood, before opening the door and hesitantly poking her head in.

She was greeted by the sight of what seemed to be the kitchen – and the woman she sort of remembered showing her to the room upstairs last night, who looked up from some work at Lydia's entering.

"Hello, dear!" the woman greeted with a smile. "Did you sleep well?"

"Uh, yes, thank you..."

"Let me get you something to eat, I am sure you must be hungry." The woman put what she had been working on a worktop in front of her and went to another part of the kitchen.

"Oh, uhm... If it's not too much trouble...?" Lydia had to admit that she really _was_ quite hungry.

"Of course not! Go and have a seat, I shall be right done," she told the redhead with a nod towards the room behind her.

"Can I help in some way?"

"That is not neccessary, I will just get you some cold dishes you can prepare to your liking, if that is fine with you? I am a little busy preparing some things for tonight."

"Of course, uhm, thank you then." She hesitated for a moment, watching the woman gather several things, before asking what had been on her mind since coming downstairs. "Do you know where the man is I was with...?"

"Oh, he said he wanted to go explore the place a little a while ago. I am sure he will be back soon."

"Ah... I see."

Lydia couldn't help feeling a little disappointed that she didn't get to join the Doctor in the exploring. Now that she had rested and was feeling more like herself again (and actually aware of her surroundings), she was quite curious to see more of the place. But then again, she couldn't really expect him to just sit around and twiddle his thumbs while she was sleeping – especially on a whole new planet for him. So it shouldn't have come as surprise, really. (She ignored the little voice telling her that it had sort of come as one, though.)

One last thing then; "Uhm, is there maybe a toilet, or, uhm," she remembered how oldfashioned everything looked, "Or a... latrine... somewhere?" Her bladder was almost painfully reminding her of all the juice she had been drinking last night.

The woman led Lydia outside, through another door than the one they had entered the building through last night (which was probably the front door), to what appeared to be a garden of sorts. She introduced herself as Rona, Iwin's wife, on the way, before leaving the redhead alone to do her business.

Lydia found herself standing in front of a tiny, wooden structure.

_'Well, at least it's not open or anything... And I've got tissues.'_ Patting her messenger bag, she entered the privy and relieved herself.

When she stepped out again a moment later, she wondered what to do about her hands. She'd rather not eat after using the loo without washing them... Looking around while slowly making her way back to the building, she spotted a pump well with a low stone basin standing a few metres away, between Iwin's house and another building. Feeling relieved, she went over to it and began pumping with one hand, holding the other under the water, before using it to wet the other too. When she was just about to pump again, she noticed a small brownish lump lying on the edge of the stony basin.

_'Wait, could that be...'_ Picking it up and running her wet thumb over it on a hunch, she felt it become slick, and soon a little creamy in her hand.

Huh, would you look at that; soap. Maybe this place wasn't _quite_ as medieval as she had first thought?

Happy with her discovery, she lathered her hands and finished washing them, before heading back to Iwin's house. On her way, a young man coming out of the smaller house next to it passed her, carrying what looked like a wooden bench over his shoulder. He slowed down a little when they got close and gave her a bright smile.

"Hello, welcome to Eden!" he greeted.

"Oh, hi," Lydia replied, surprised at the cheery greeting from the complete stranger.

"I would love to chat, but these are not going to deliver themselves," the youthful villager said with tilt of his head towards the bench. "I shall catch you later?" he asked with an eager look.

"Uhm... sure...?"

He pulled a hand free and waved at her, before continuing on his way, leaving Lydia standing confused between the houses, her hand awkwardly up from waving back.

Was _everyone_ this friendly around here...?

She shook her head and made her way back into the house, and when she entered the big main room, which she assumed to be some kind of common room, again, she noticed that the table she had been sitting at last night was no longer emtpy; several plates and bowls with food, as well as a jug with what looked like the juice she'd had last night, were standing on it.

Sitting down, Lydia took a quick look at what was available and began eating.

Around fifteen minutes later, when she was munching on a slice of (really good) bread with some kind of jam on it, the front door opened and she saw the Doctor entering. He took a quick look around, before spotting her at the table and coming over with a small smile.

"Oh, hello there!" He took a seat opposite her. "Back with the living at last?"

"Yeah. Hi," she smiled sheepishly at him. It felt a little weird again for a moment to actually see and talk to the Time Lord, especially after that confusing dream she'd had. "How long have I been sleeping?"

"Been almost twelve hours now since you went to bed."

Oh. That explained why she felt so groggy... Though it was getting a little better now with the food in her stomach, the headache was almost gone, too.

"Really, I'll never understand how you humans can be fine with sleeping half of your life away," he commented, taking something she hadn't been able to identify from a bowl and popping it into his mouth.

Lydia couldn't help rolling her eyes. "Not everyone has 'superior physiology', you know. And I had a rather eventful time..."

They ate together in comfortable silence for a moment, Lydia's thoughts drifting back to Rona and the young man outside bustling around. "The people here seem to be quite busy, don't they?"

"Hm? Oh, yes, must be the preparations for the evening festivities."

"Evening festivities?"

"Yeah, to 'welcome the first outside visitors they ever had'."

It took her a moment to get the meaning of his words and connect it to the situation.

"Wait, they're throwing a party for _us_?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"Yep," he answered, popping the 'p'. "I tried telling them there is no need, but they wouldn't hear of it. Honestly, for all their easy friendliness these people can be quite stubborn." He grabbed a smoked looking, thin sausage from one of the plates. "Or maybe they just really like to party, who knows."

The next couple of minutes passed in silence as Lydia was lost in her musings. She wondered what the Doctor had found in his exploration. He didn't looky very tense or nervous, so maybe he had some good news?

Probably best to simply ask.

"So... this place looks a little... well, I don't know, oldfashioned or 'medieval', doesn't it?" She still felt a little uncomfortable about that fact; could that mean they wouldn't be able to find the needed mercury stuff here? That was probably something more advanced, if it was used in spaceships, wasn't it?

"Hm, a little perhaps. They don't seem to use any kind of electronics at all, actually resorting to mostly traditional methods in their every day life, from what I've seen." He paused and took another bite from the sausage, gazing at her intently. " _But_ – when I scanned the surroundings, I found some residue of shielding technology in the atmosphere. And during my walk around a forest at the other side of the village, I also came upon unpowered ultrasound transmitters placed around the grounds – bit like a perimeter, now that I think about it."

She frowned. That was weird...

"Exactly," he said in reaction to her frown. "What I _do_ know is that these people are at least aware of the existence of advanced technology, as well as apparently space travel, since the concept of us appearing from the stars didn't seem too far-fetched or even completely new to them."

Lydia looked up from refilling her cup in surprise. "You told them we're not from this planet?"

The Doctor stared at her. "Where you dozing through the _whole_ conversation last night?"

Lydia blushed. She really could recall only random bits after they had arrived at the village...

"Yeah, well, I was a _little_ exhausted..." she weakly defended herself.

"Quite evidently," he replied, giving her a look, which softened after a moment. "Sorry 'bout that, by the way. I should have payed more attention to you. Forgot how fast those _'human legs'_ of yours can tire on longer distance."

She blinked in surprise at the unexpected apology; she could've asked him to slow down after all, and it wasn't like they'd had any other choice than walking, and–  
Wait, had he just thrown her own words from last night back at her?

"Especially short ones. Legs, I mean. Not that I'm saying yours are short," he quickly added, glancing at her jeans clad legs under the table. "Well, except, they _are_... Really, how _do_ you get from place to place in any time?"

The questioning look was wiped off his face when a torn off piece from Lydia's bread hit him in the face and bounced off his cheek, replaced by a bewildered one.

The redhead's eyes widened when she realised she had given in to a reflex without taking into consideration just who her target was; which was usually Wolfgang, the reason why this reflex of throwing things when someone was poking just a little too much fun at her existed in the first place.

A beat of silence as they stared at each other.

"Did you just throw your breakfast at me?"

Lydia pressed her lips together, stiffling a nervous laugh at the incredulous tone and expression on the Doctor's face.

"Maybe?" she replied, trying - and failing - to keep a straight face when she noticed a bit of jam clinging to his cheek.

Another second of silence.

"Well, that's new," he finally simply said, wiping the jam from his cheek and licking it off his finger. "Oh, this is good! Anyway," he surprised Lydia a little when he simply went on with the earlier conversation, "Yes, they know we're not from this planet. And everyone simply accepted it, just like that!" He frowned, putting his elbows on the table and leaning a bit towards her. "I have also heard some of the people mentioning a Guardian. That's a capital G, by the way," he commented, pointing the half-eaten sausage at her. "And from what I have gathered, they know about technology from him – seems like he's also the source of the electronic bits I found. The only other thing that they could tell me about this 'Guardian', is that he apparently protects them and takes care of everything around them, didn't even seem to care much about the details... Can you imagine that?! Knowing of some being controlling your world and just accepting it like that, without giving a jot about it?" He gave her an incredulous look, sounding indignant.

Lydia had just been thinking on a reply, when he was already talking again.

"But anyway," another bite into the sausage, "I've been told a village elder of sorts knows more, and to talk to him when he returns from a trip to a neighbouring village. He should've arrived by now – just wanted to check how you are doing, and let you know what's going on." The last bit of sausage disappeared into his mouth and he got up from his chair. "Shouldn't take very long, I think."

Lydia watched him as he put the chair back under the table and made to leave again. "Are you..."

He stopped to look at her.

"Are you going on your own then?"

"Yah, it'll basically just be two old men talking. Quite boring, really," he told her with a wave of his hand. "You just stay here and I'll come back as soon as I am finished, all right?"

The young woman stared at him for a moment, uncertain about how to react to his prompt decision making without even asking of her opinion, but finally nodded.

"Okay."

If he really was just going to have a talk with the village elder, then maybe she could try talking to Rona, too; who knows, they might have more luck in getting some information by trying different sources.

"But I'm taking you by your word about the 'back as soon as you're finished' part," she added with a pointed look.

The Doctor simply raised his brows at that, before continuing on his way and leaving the building.

Lydia let out a soft sigh, but then looked up in surprise when the door opened again with his head poking through.

"Oh, and try not to get into any trouble while I'm gone!"

With that he disappeared again, leaving Lydia once more alone in the spacious room and staring at the closed door in bemusement.  
Shaking her head at the scene, she finished eating the almost forgotten bread in her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little side note: when I started writing this fic, this chapter ended a little earlier when the Doctor told Lydia to stay and wait for him, with a choice for the readers to decide on which urge Lydia should act on - play it safe and stick with the Doctor anyway in this unkown situation, or let him split them up and try poking around for some info herself.  
> As you can see, the latter won out.


	7. Chapter 7

_[Previously:]_

_Lydia let out a soft sigh, but then looked up in surprise when the door opened again with his head poking through._

_"Oh, and try not to get into any trouble while I'm gone!"_

_With that he disappeared again, leaving Lydia once again alone in the spacious room and staring at the closed door in bemusement. Shaking her head at the scene, she finished eating the almost forgotten bread in her hand._

* * *

In the quiet of the room she fell back into pondering her situation. It had still felt quite weird and a bit surreal, to be honest, to be sitting there in some strangers' house, having a partly exotic breakfast while chatting to the Time Lord.

A small part of her was still waiting to wake up from yet another dream any second, no matter how real her sore muscles felt, or how slowly and detailed time passed around her. She found the very idea of being stranded on a different planet, thanks to an unplanned trip in the TARDIS after running into the Doctor, to be a bit harder to accept as actual reality than she had anticipated at first.  
Simply stopping questioning your sense of reality in a situation like this turned out be not so simple after all.

Well, she'd just have to continue trying then, didn't she?

Lydia sighed, getting up from her seat and gathering the things from the table. No point in just sitting there and getting lost in thought again – it wasn't going to change anything about her situation either way.  
It took her several trips to get all the dishes back into the kitchen, and when she had put the last of them away to where Rona directed her to, she hung back, watching the older woman work with some hesitation. She was just going to go for some casual chatting, so there really was no need to feel so nervous, the redhead tried telling herself.

Rona seemed to notice her hovering, as she turned to face Lydia and gave her a questioning look.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Uhmm... Actually, I was wondering if perhaps I could help you out a bit?"

"Oh, there is no need, you do not have to worry about it."

"Well, it's just, I don't really have anything to do other than wait, and I thought maybe I could at least make myself a little useful? Beats just sitting around and twiddling my thumbs," Lydia hesitantly smiled. Which was actually rather true. Being busy might also help her in keeping all the thoughts and doubts about her situation at bay.

The older woman considered her for a moment, before seeming to come to a decision and signaling for Lydia to come closer. "You could help with the juice perhaps?" She pointed at several bowls full with maroon coloured fruits that were about the size of apricots. "These have to be cut in half and have the pips removed first." She pushed another, empty bowl towards Lydia.

Lydia got to work, and when she finished cutting and pitting the fruits, Rona showed her their way to win juice out of them. Looking at the colour of the juice, the redhead realised it was probably the same kind of juice she had been given to drink.  
Their conversation narrowed down on the process for a while, rather fascinating Lydia, and for most of the past fifteen minutes during which Lydia had gotten busy with pressing juice, it had grown quiet between the two women. While not in an uncomfortable way, it was still quite the opposite of Lydia's attempt to gather some information.

She was just considering on a topic to start another conversation, when Rona's voice sounded from her left.

"I have to bring these to the fairground where the celebration will be held," Rona told her, pointing at several bowls, dishes, kegs and a baskets of bread standing on the wooden table. "Would you like to accompany me? It would be faster to carry the lot with two pairs of hands."

"I wouldn't mind at all, but I'm actually waiting for the Doctor to return..."

Lydia thought about it for a moment; the Doctor had been gone for quite a while now, and there was still no sign of him. While he had asked her to stay here and wait, she _had_ offered her help to Rona, and, well, since they were going to go between places and come back again to collect more stuff, she might catch the Doctor here when they returned? So maybe it wouldn't even be a problem at all? (And she really wanted to see a bit more of this place, to be honest...)

"Is it far from here?"

"No, barely a walk at all." Apparently noticing Lydia's hesitation, Rona suggested, "You could leave him a note should he not come upon us?"

"That's a good idea!" Lydia agreed, feeling better about the prospect with that.

Rona got her a rough piece of hand-made paper and a sort of graphite pen, and Lydia penned a quick message on it, leaving it well visible on the table she had sat at before.

_'Went with Rona to help carry stuff to the fairground. –Lydia'_

She just hoped he'd know about the fairground... If not, he could always ask someone for directions, since apparently it wasn't even far away, so there shouldn't be much of a problem.

Giving the note one last glance, she made her way back to the kitchen.

* * *

When they had first arrived at the fairground (which was basically just a big open space on a meadow at the edge of the village), where several more people were busy with preparations, Rona had introduced Lydia to her daughters, who the redhead remembered watching the night before when she had dozed off at the table. The girls helped them carry all the things to the fairground from their house, chatting pleasantly with Lydia, and with four pairs of hands it didn't take many trips to carry everything over. They hadn't come upon the Doctor during any of the trips back, though.

Lydia was just putting the last basket she had been carrying on a table, when someone greeted her from behind.

"Hello again!"

Turning around at the unfamiliar voice, she saw that it was the young man from before, who she had seen carrying a bench from the house next to Rona's. Seeing him from up close, she noticed that he looked rather youthful, appearing to be a little younger than her.

"Oh, hello," she returned his greeting.

"I am Lee," he introduced himself with a wide smile. "Rona told me your name is Lydia?"

"Uh, yes," she replied, a little surprised at that. She threw a glance at Rona's direction, who was currently busy with a barrel a little further away.

"Well, it is very nice to meet you propperly now! I have so many questions about where you are from; about the way you spend your days, and your nights; what you do for entertainment... Just, _everything_!" He grinned. "So how is life where you are from?"

She had to fight back an amused smile at his bubbly excitement. "Oh, different... _quite_ different."

"In what way?"

"Uhm..." Lydia tried to think of a specific example, but so many things came to mind that she didn't know where to start. She finally decided to go for what she found to be the most strange and different about this place. "We don't have any 'guardian' like you do, who takes care of all the people, for example."

"Oh? Then who makes sure you are safe and cared for?"

"Well, we do have governments and the likes who run their countries, and a system that takes care of a lot of things. But when it comes to your own personal safety and well-being, everyone - well, grown-ups, at least - kinda looks after themselves and their families."

He raised his eyebrows at that. "Huh... that is strange. I mean, it must be interesting to take care of things, but it is good to know the Guardian is there and looks after us."

"I hope you don't mind me asking, but how exactly do you know that he really does look after you? How can you be sure he's even really there?" she couldn't help asking. From what she'd seen around here, these people also seemed to be going about their days by themselves.

"Well, things are being taken care of, so there is that," he replied with an easy smile, apparently not offended in the least by her question. "And he used to talk to us, of course, but it has gotten more and more rare, and lately it has been very quiet. Maybe there is nothing to take care of at the moment? Everyone seems to be doing well, after all."

Lydia blinked in surprise. "He talks to you?" So they really did mean an actual being or person, and not some kind of deity or idea they believed in?

Lee nodded. "Yes, of course."

"Has anyone ever actually seen him?"

"I have heard that some used to have audiences with him, but that has been quite a long time ago. I think Dares was the last one who had one with him, when I was still a child, as far as I remember."

Something occured to Lydia at that; "Wait, if most of you have never seen him, then how come he talked to you?"

"Oh, he talks to us from the skies," he told her, confusing Lydia only more.

"From the skies?" she repeated doubtfully. If they were talking about an actual person, how the heck could they talk to them from the sky?

"Yes." The young man leant forward, lowering his voice a little as he looked excitedly at her. "I have found a box made out of that odd, smooth material up in the crown of a tree one day. You are not supposed to climb them up very high because you might fall off, but I just wanted to see how far I could go, you know?" He gave her a boyish grin.

"So you found a box, in a tree?" Lydia repeated again, trying to follow the line the conversation was taking.

"Yes. I think it might be what Dares and some of the older folks call the Workings of Old. Most of us know that the Guardian uses them to take care of us and keep us safe, and I think he might also use it to talk to us, so maybe this box was one? From what I have heard them say about the Workings, it might be, but I am not really sure."

Workings of Old? Things here were becoming stranger and stranger, and Lydia wondered what it might all have to do with this mysterious Guardian character.  
Pondering over the things she had just learned and trying to connect the dots, a sudden realisation hit her; if what Lee said was true and this Guardian person projected his voice from boxes hidden in trees, then could these 'Workings of Old' be the electronic bits and traces the Doctor had talked about? Might it be their expression for technology? (If that was the case, then why did they call it 'old', when it was rather their lifestyle that was backwards?)

Well, first she'd have to find out if she even got the right idea about it being technology.

"The man I'm with, he said he found some devices placed around the ground of a forest that didn't seem to naturally belong there. Do you think they could also be Workings of Old?" Lydia asked him, getting a little excited that she might finally be able to gather some information.

Lee seemed to be thinking about it for a moment. "I am not sure, I do not really know that much about the Workings, almost no one really does... But I think I know what he meant!"

"Really?"

"Yes, there are some of what you described near the edge of this forest, too," he told her, pointing at a group of trees on the other side of the fairground. "I could show it to you if you want? I have to collect some wood for the fire tonight anyway, so we could do that at the same time?"

Lydia looked at the trees he'd pointed at, considering her options. "How deep would we have to go into it?"

While the edge of the forest he had pointed at wasn't very far away, she wasn't sure if it would be wise to wander off too far into it when she was actually keeping her eyes open for the Doctor. But then again she had already learned something that might turn out to be important about this place from Lee, and maybe he knew even more? Plus, if what he wanted to show her really were also transmitters like the Doctor had found, she could try to check if they might have power.

"Just a little, we would still be near the edge," Lee assured her. "It will take no time at all to show it to you and to collect some wood."

Feeling encouraged by this information, Lydia agreed and they made their way over the fairground and into the forest. The trees soon began blocking out more and more of the late afternoon sun the further they went in, but there was still enough light to see the ground by.

"It is nice that you want to see them," Lee grinned at her over his shoulder, leading the way, "almost no one here really cares much about the Workings or things, so I am usually alone in my excitement when I find something new. I always get told that I am much too nosy for my own good."

Lydia gave him a smile at that. She could very well relate to being too curious, her ending up on this planet was proof enough of that. "Do you know what they might be used for?"

He shrugged. "No idea."

"Hm... Have you found any other kinds of these Workings of Old, or do you maybe know of any other things the Guardian might use?"

"You know, I think you might be too nosy for your own good, too. You are asking almost more questions than me."

He gave her another grin, the tone of his voice was entirely light and playful, though, so Lydia didn't think he had meant to offend her. She was beginning to wonder if these people were even capable of offending anyone. Everyone she had met so far had been all smiles and of good nature.

"But no," he answered her question. "There are not really many of them around, I have only come upon these two kinds. I think Dares is the only one around here who actually knows a little about them." He didn't elaborate any further on it, and when he spoke again a moment later, it was only to declare, "We are almost there."

Lydia caught herself being a bit disappointed by that. She had gotten her hopes up at having gathered the first bits of real information, starting to think that maybe she might be of some actual help to work out this weird situation in which the Doctor and her found themselves in. She had been hoping to find out even more, but it seemed like this was as much information as Lee could provide – not that she wasn't grateful for the bit he had already given her. He had mentioned someone else who might know more, though...

"Who is this Dares the–" The end of the sentence got caught in her throat as she ran into Lee's back, who had very suddenly come to a stop right in front of her. Rubbing her forehead, she went to stand next to the villager, grinning a sheepish "Sorry" at him for her clumsiness, before looking at what she assumed where the transmitters they had reached and had made him stop in his tracks.

Her eyes landed on something entirely different, though.

A few metres in front of them she saw a body sprawled on the ground in the grass. Her own body switched into reaction and quickly made its way towards the figure. As she came close enough, she could see that it was a middleaged man – and that his face was covered in blood.

Her heart rate quickened as she stopped next to him and bent over. "Sir? Can you hear me?"

The man showed no reaction, and when Lydia looked over her shoulder at Lee, she saw him still standing where he had come to a stop, staring at the scene with wide eyes.

"Go and get help!" she ordered, before going down on one knee and doing the first thing she could think of. She reached for the man's throat to check his pulse, while trying to remember the things she had learned in the first aid course she'd had to take for her driver's licence some years ago. Her brain was having trouble keeping a straight thought process, as she began to panic a little that the man might not be breathing or something. There was blood all over his face coming from a long cut on his forehead, running down his neck next to where she was searching for a pulse, and, oh God, what if he was dead?!

Relief flooded her when she felt a clear pulse under her fingers, and she almost fell back on her bum with it.

"Sir? Hello?" she tried again, before carefully moving her hands to the sides of his face and moving his head the slightest bit so she could hold her ear to his nose and mouth to see if he was breathing.

When the man breathed a low groan into her ear, she did fall back on her bum in startled surprise.

Hearing steps behind her, she looked over her shoulder and saw the Lee had not gone to get help as she had told him to.

"Is that..." He stopped when he was standing next to her, looking at the man who was slowly regaining consciousness. "That is Janos!"

The man, now identified as Janos, groaned again, pushing himself up on an elbow. "Wha' happ'nd...?" he asked in a slurred voice.

"I don't think it's wise for you to move right now..." Lydia advised him, worriedly watching as he continued sitting up despite said advice.

Lee squatted down and supported him with a hand on his back. "What happened, Janos?"

"That is what I would like to know," the other man replied, his voice a little clearer now, as he rubbed his head and hissed when it moved the glistening skin around the cut on his forehead.

"You should let Moira have a look at that," Lee told him.

"Mh," Janos grunted, "Might be true, I do not feel quite right."

Not liking it at all when the injured man tried to stand up, not knowing what might have happened to his head, Lydia advised him again, "I _really_ think you should stay on the ground until we get some help, Sir."

"Ah, nonsense," he replied, slowly standing up on very obviously wobbly legs. "Just took a hit to the head, my legs are still fine. Come on, Lee, give me a hand here."

Lee went to support Janos under his shoulder, and when the two men made to leave the forest, Lydia sighed resignedly and went to support Janos on the other side – even if it was a little difficult with the difference in height.

They supported the man out of the forest slowly, and a few metres after they had left the last group of trees, they were spotted by a group of villagers who were still preparing the fairground. A few words seemed to be exchanged, and then some of them dropped what they had been working on and quickly made their way towards the trio – amongst them a figure in a familiar, tan coat.

"What happened?!" the Doctor asked, taking over from Lydia and helping Lee move Janos over to a bench where they sat the injured man down.

Apparently thinking that the question had been directed at him, Janos answered, "I heard something up in the trees – and when I looked up, a shadow came upon me, and the next thing I know, I am lying on the ground with a stranger over me."

The Doctor gave Lydia a long look at, and she simply shrugged, not quite knowing what to add to that.

"Did you go deeper into it?" one of the villagers who had come over to help asked.

"No, no further than usually," Janos replied.

"Does something like that happen often?" the Doctor asked, while reaching into his inner jacket pocket.

"No, not at all," another man from group replied, who Lydia only now noticed was Iwin. "The edge of the forest is perfectly safe."

"Well, obviously not," the Doctor muttered, having pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and squatted so he was at eye level with Janos. "Look at me for a moment," he instructed and then gently held the lids of one of Janos' eyes apart, before pointing his screwdriver at it and shining its blue light at the man's eye. He repeated the action with the other eye, and then seemed to check the reading, before putting the screwdriver away again. "You seem to be having a mild concussion going there," he declared. "And that nasty cut on your forehead, of course, but that actually looks quite clean and not too deep, so that's good."

He reached into his jacket again, this time into one of the outer pockets, and after some rummaging he pulled out a small white packet. "Ha! Knew I still had one somewhere," he commented and ripped the paper wrapping open, revealing a gauze pad inside it. (Lydia wasn't really sure whether she was surprised at him carrying that with him, or not.)  
He pressed the pad over the cut on Janos' forehead, apologising when it made the man wince. "No worries about all that blood, injuries to the head tend to bleed a lot, and it looks like it's already stopping. Keep on pressing that to your forehead, though. You should have someone clean it and keep an eye on you."

One of the men from the group who had been watching the Doctor checking Janos, went to help the man up. "Come on, I will take you to Moira."

"Will they be able to take care of him?" the Doctor asked him.

"Yes, she is experienced in healing," Iwin said, who had also stepped forward and went to support Janos' other side.

They watched them accompany the injured man, who seemed to be a little more steady on his legs now, into the village, and the remaining group soon broke up again and went back to each of their tasks, until only the Doctor, Lydia and Lee remained.

When Janos had disappeared from view, the Doctor turned to face Lydia. "Are you all right? You weren't hurt?"

Lydia shook her head. "No, we just found him lying unconscious on the ground."

The Doctor sighed, an unhappy expression falling over his face. "I told you to stay back and wait for me. Why is it that no one ever listens when I tell them to stay where they are? Oh no, people _always_ have to wander off!" He threw his hands into the air in a show of exasperation at the last part.

Lydia flinched at the unexpected telling-off, still feeling a bit shaken up from finding a bloody, unmoving body in the forest. "I–... Sorry. But you've been gone for a long while, and I didn't want to just sit around uselessly. I was told it wasn't far away, and even left you a message so you knew where I am. I really didn't think anything would happen..."

"There is really no need to be harsh with her," Lee cut in, "The edge of the forest is completely safe. The only times anyone ever got hurt in any way, was whenever someone got a little too daring and brought it upon themselves – which, I have to admit, included me on occasion," he added with a sheepish grin. "It is not her fault. I might not have gone to that spot and noticed Janos lying there, had Lydia not come along, so it was probably even for the better. And I would not have known what to do as fast as she had."

The Doctor looked from Lee to Lydia. "What were you even doing there?"

Lydia told him what she'd learned from Lee, and the Doctor listened to her explanations and ideas. When she had finished, he asked the young man to show him the spots of his findings in the forest, as well as where they had found Janos.

He didn't even ask Lydia if she wanted to come along when they went off.

* * *

Almost an hour must have passed before Lydia finally saw the two coming out of the forest again. She had spent the time immersed in her thoughts, sitting on the bench, which she had noticed looked like the one Lee had been carrying before. After the Doctor had had his moment about people wandering off, she had deemed it wiser to just sit there and wait for his return instead of going anywhere to offer her help with preparations, even if it would've been close – he had seemed annoyed enough with her as it was.

The two men were carrying some wood and placed it on a spot near the centre of the large space that was being prepared as the fairground. They exchanged a few more words, before Lee went back to the forest again - to get more wood, Lydia assumed - and the Doctor made his way towards her.

He took a seat next to Lydia on the wooden bench without a word, and a moment passed in silence, during which the redhead nervously fiddled with the zip of her hoodie (well, her borrowed hoodie). Was he still annoyed with her?

When the Doctor sighed, Lydia glanced at him and saw him rubbing his face. "Sorry for earlier. It's just that the conversation with that village elder was rather frustrating and still left me with questions about this whole situation. And then I come here expecting to see you with Rona, just to find you gone who knows where and then seeing you carry a bloodied man out of the forest – that didn't really improve the mood."

Lydia winced; from that point of view her actions really did appear rather unfavourable. "Yeah, I'm sorry, too... I really hadn't planned on wandering off, wasn't expecting it to take more than just a few minutes to see the transmitters and collect the wood, when Lee asked if I'd come along. I thought he might know something else and wanted to tell me in private, since I've been asking him about this place and the Guardian and all. Turns out; he didn't." She shrugged, letting her eyes wander back to the people bustling around.

"Hmm. I bet he wanted to talk in private."

She looked at this profile in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Well, he sure was quick to jump to your rescue from my 'being harsh' with you, and talked rather fondly of you in the forest," the Doctor replied, giving her a meaningful look with just the hint of a smirk around his lips.

Lydia rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, please. He was just being nice - like _everyone_ else around here. Always kind and friendly. It's quite a bit weird, don't you think?"

"Tiny bit maybe. Not unheard of, but rare enough, sadly."

"So, were Lee's findings of any help?"

"Nope. Not really, unfortunately. That wasn't bad thinking, by the way, connecting his descriptions of the loudspeakers in the trees and the transmitters and their technical nature with these people's 'Workings'."

"Oh, uhm. Thanks," she smiled, pleasantly surprised by the remark.

They watched the villagers finishing their tasks in more comfortable silence after that, placing torches around the ground and finishing building a huge bonfire.  
The shock from finding the injured Janos was mostly gone by now, and Lydia felt a lot better now that the earlier tension between her and the Doctor seemed to be resolved. With everything that was going on, being at odds with him was the last thing she needed.

"Can I ask what was so frustrating about your conversation with that elder?" she asked after a while.

"Oh, he just ignored a warning I gave him and withheld some important information, stating that respecting the effort the whole village puts into the welcoming festivities was more important right now; something about it being shameful not to properly welcome us first." He gave a sniff and shrugged, looking rather unimpressed about that sentiment. "These people really are some of the most stubborn I have ever met. And that's saying something."

He leant forwards and rested his elbows on his knees, while his eyes swept over the busy villagers. "I really can't get over how carelessly depending they are on this 'Guardian' of theirs," he mumbled, brow knitted into a frown. "I mean, look at them; one of their people might just have been attacked in this forest, and here they are, carelessly perparing a celebration right next to it!" He huffed, shaking his head at the scene in front of them. "They think that just because it's been safe before, it will continue being that way, never mind what just happened. That's not naivety anymore, that's outright foolishness."

Lydia silently agreed with that. It really was odd how at ease everyone seemed to be; you would never have guessed that they'd found a mysteriously injured friend and neighbour only about an hour ago. Apparently all they needed to know, was that the man was more or less back on his feet and in no serious danger.

But there was something else the Doctor had mentioned that caught her attention; "You think the man was attacked?"

"Well, I didn't find any actual traces of an attacker, but that whole 'shadow falling upon' him thing does sound rather ominous, don't you think? And how did he get that cut on his forehead?"

"Maybe he hit a stone or tree root or something on his way down?" she offered.

"No, there was nothing of that kind around the spot you found him."

"Hm..." Lydia frowned, trying to think of what else might have caused it without an attacker, but coming up with nothing. But if none of these people seemed to be harbouring any aggressions, then just what might have been the attacker?

They watched Lee return from the forest and being called over by someone, before giving them an enthusiastic wave and walking away from the fairground with some of the other men.

"So..." The redhead cleared her throat after giving a short wave back, trying not think about the Doctor's earlier comment on Lee's supposed fondness. "What now?"

"Now we join a party – don't want to disrespect them, do we?"

She gave him a baffled look. "Seriously?" That was the last thing she had expected him to say.

"Yep!" he said, popping the 'p', before taking on a determined expression. "And then I _am_ going to get myself some directions."

* * *

A few hours had passed since the villagers had finished their preparations and gathered at the fairground as the sun had set, filled with a few introductions, a welcoming speech, talk, and lots of food and drinks – and the worrying happenings that had occured not too long ago to one of them had already left most minds.

Sitting at one of the long tables around the huge bonfire that lit up the night, Lydia was listening enthralled along with some of the villagers to an amusing tale the Doctor was telling them about one of his adventures, which he had gotten into when someone had asked him what kind of places he'd been to.

"So, yeah, there's actually an awful lot you can do with a broom," he wrapped the story up with a grin, "More than anyone would believe there to be, in any case. Not that I think most people would even consider using it in such ways." He suddenly directed his attention at their hosts' daughters sitting opposite him, and out of the blue asked them, "And do I still have jam on my face?"

The girls just looked at him blankly, not really sure what he was talking about, and one of them shook her head. There was no jam among the selection of food and snacks on the table, so they probably wondered how he was supposed to have gotten it on his face.

"Really? I could swear I'm smelling jam..."

Lydia felt herself blush, being reminded of her uncontrolled reaction to his comments earlier that day during her breakfast. How unfair of him to bring it up now when everyone was listening!  
She was reaching for her cup on the table to hide her embarrassment behind, when the Doctor suddenly took hold of her wrist.

"Aha!" he exclaimed, and Lydia was just about to ask him what the heck he was doing, when he turned her hand around in his, so her palm facing was up. There was a dark, hardened stain on the edge of her hoodie's sleeve.

"The nose doesn't lie," he declared, tapping said part of his face with a smug grin.

The redhead just stared at the man, not quite believing he was getting back at her so publically, while the rest at the table found the scene amusing enough to laugh at it.

Conversations around the tables fell quiet when a violin like sound came from the middle of the fairground, and Lydia turned around to see a small group of villagers preparing themselves with various instruments around the open space near the bonfire, most of the instruments looking a bit off but still recognisable. As soon as the other instruments joined the violin like sound and created an actual melody, a lot of people got up from their seats and made their way to the open space, while the rest fell back into their conversations.  
Lydia watched the villagers beginning to dance with each other for a moment, smiling to herself at the lighthearted atmosphere, before turning back around and listening to the conversations around her.

After the second song had started, she felt someone touch her on the shoulder. When she turned to look at the person, she saw that it was Lee.

He held his hand out to her. "Come, join us!"

"Huh?" she replied dumbly, not quite getting what he meant.

"Come and dance!" he clarified with an inviting grin.

"Oh, err, thank you, but I'm not much of a dancer..." the redhead replied, trying to politely decline the invitation.

"Aw, don't be like that! I'm sure it'll be fun," the Doctor encouraged from her right.

"No really, I'm good here, thanks," she insisted with a forced smile at the Time Lord, before softening it a little when directing it back at Lee, feeling slightly awkward.

The Doctor, it seemed, wouldn't have any of that, though.

"Oh, come on! You don't want to be rude by disregarding these good people's efforts and offend them, do you?"

Lydia gaped at the slight smirk on his face; she couldn't believe he had just put her on the spot like that!  
Sighing softly, with no other option without really offending anyone now, she stood up and gave the Doctor a small, if not entirely serious, glare. She was certain this had to be his personal revenge for heaving part of her breakfast thrown at him, what with his earlier jam remark in mind.

Following Lee to the dancing area, Lydia awkwardly tried to join into the rhythm of the music on the uneven grass. She was thankful for having a little experience in dancing with swaying hips to similarly sounding kinds of music, so at least she wasn't completely out of rhythm and making a total fool out of herself (in which case she would've probably preferred offending someone by not moving from her seat), but she still felt very shy when there were so many unknown faces watching.  
The other dancers around them gave her encouraging smiles, someone even did some ridiculous moves, making her laugh and relax a little more. One moment she seemed to dance with Lee, and in the next there was someone else, and then again a different face, before Lee returned. The music picked up a little speed, and with people encouraging her, it really become quite fun and Lydia found that she was actually enjoying herself, forgetting her worries for the moment.

She danced with the villagers for two or three songs, before making to leave the area again. While it had been quite fun, it also reminded her that the muscles in her legs were still quite sore from all the walking, and now they were protesting at her heavy use of them.

Noticing that the spot at the table where she and the Doctor had been sitting was empty, she looked around and spotted him standing alone near the barrels and kegs containing beverages with a cup in his hand, as he watched the proceedings from the sidelines. Lydia made her way over to him, having to awkwardly decline another offer from Lee for another dance, before finally reaching the Time Lord.

"He seems to be quite taken with you," the Doctor teased with a smirk, making Lydia feel a little embarrassed again.

"Oh stop it, will you!"

She got a small chuckle in response.

A short moment of silence followed their brief exchange, in which the Doctor took a sip from his drink while they both watched the merry proceedings a little further away. She was just considering getting a new drink herself, since she was already here and a little thirsty from the dancing, when his lowered voice broke the silence.

"Donna - the last person I travelled with... She unwittingly accepted a marriage proposal once on T'Treni, when she had been asked for a dance and accepted, followed by her sharing a drink out of the same cup with her dancing partner. Ohh, the look on her face when she was told about their wedding night traditions – and the egg laying involved!" He chuckled. "I had to swear to never take her to that planet again, not ever."

Lydia looked up at his profile in surprise, wondering where that had suddenly come from. He stared ahead with a far-away look, the amusement heard in his voice earlier now reduced to the ghost of a smile around his lips.

She then realised that he had just answered her question from the day before, which he had chosen to ignore at that time.

So his last companion had been Donna...

Lydia finally knew where in the Doctor's timeline they were and what was safe to potentially talk about. But even so she realised her knowledge of the current events was mostly vague; there had been only very few adventures pointed out that he'd had on his own during the years after Donna, before he–

Lydia's stomach dropped at the thought, instantly ruining her good humour, and she refused to finish it.

"What?" the Doctor finally asked, when she kept staring at him wordlessly for a while.

"Nothing," Lydia replied quickly, averting her eyes.

Her mind was beginning to run wild again with the information he had just given her. The potential to interfere with his future nudged her from the back of her mind, but once again she shoved the intimidating idea back, refusing to further consider it right now. Just thinking of the possibility and all its weighty implications was already scary enough.

She heard the Doctor take in a breath to say more, but he was interrupted when they were approached by a couple that greeted them, refilling their drinks at one of the barrels.

"Your arrival must be really something special, when even the skies decide to celebrate your welcoming!" the man told them in a slightly joking tone.

"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked, tilting his head back to look at the sky.

"Look there!" The woman who had previously been in the man's arm pointed at the sky behind them, and they turned around to follow her direction.

The sky was streaked in green and magenta lights again – only they weren't soft at all anymore like before, now they were even more vibrant than those polar lights Lydia remembered seeing on photos. The colours were so intense, that they almost looked like a live Photoshop effect.

"Oh, that's beautiful," the redhead whispered, amazed by the view.

"Is it not?" the woman agreed. "We have seen the lights for the past few nights, but they had been barely noticeable then, nothing compared to this!"

While Lydia's face held an expression of slight awe - still a little subdued from her earlier line of thinking - the Doctor's had turned very serious when she finally took her eyes off the spectacle in the sky and glanced at him. She watched him taking his screwdriver out and pointing it at the lights, noticing the couple looking on curiously when its blue tip lit up, giving off the familiar whirring sound.

" _What?!_ " the Doctor exclaimed, his brow heavily furrowed as he stared at the readings. "But that shouldn't be–"

He seemed to change the setting and took another scan, checking the reading again – before suddenly taking off without any further words, ignoring his cup that had fallen to the ground, and running past the bonfire and dancing people towards the tables on the other side of the fairground.

"What the–"

Gathering her wits after the innitial surprise, Lydia ran after the Doctor, and when she finally caught up, she saw him gesticulating wildly at an old man, who had a frown on his face.

"No, you don't understand!"

The Doctor's voice carried over to her, as she approached them the tiniest bit out of breath, the sore muscles in her legs screaming at her.

"Listen, you're in for a very nasty solar storm; and if we don't find what has been protecting you from it until now and reactivate it, then no Guardian _whatsoever_ will be able to save you! There is no time for dancing and feasting – your people are in danger, don't you get it?!" he exclaimed, slamming his hands on the wooden surface of table as he leant on it.

The Doctor's outburst had silenced the table they were at, and people stared at him wearing varying degrees of confused expressions.

"So I need to know it _now_ ," he told the old villager, his voice having turned dangerously calm as he leant towards him over the table. "Where do I find him?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos!  
> (So someone's reading this after all, huh? ;))


	8. Chapter 8

_[Previously:]_

_"So I need to know it_ _now,_ _" he told the old villager, his voice having turned dangerously calm as he leant towards him over the table. "Where do I find him?"_

* * *

The atmosphere in what Lydia had mentally dubbed the common room in Iwin's and Rona's house was tense.

After the Doctor's outburst, where he wouldn't accept any longer waiting for his directions, the old man (who Lydia had correctly guessed to be the village elder) had suggested to take the talking somewhere else, so as to not disturb the festivities. Iwin, who had sat at the same table as the elder, had offered his house upon overhearing their conversation, and thus the little group consisting of the Doctor, Lydia, the village elder and Iwin and his wife had left the fairground.  
Lydia had been surprised to find out that the elder was called Dares when they had been introduced by Iwin on their way – but it made sense, in a way, that the elder would be the person to know the most about this strange place, as Lee had suggested in the forest earlier.

Now they were sitting around one of the few tables left behind in the common room, the rest having been taken out to the fairground.

The redhead let her eyes wander over each face, taking in the various expressions, while being rather unsure how to feel herself. She didn't really know what to think about the Doctor's warning of an approaching solar storm; there hadn't really been any opportunity to ask him about details so far. The only thing she knew about such storms, was that they could cause electric devices to malfuction when they were bad (which would kind of explain why the devices they had found here weren't working, now that she thought about it). But judging from the way the Doctor had reacted at the readings from his screwdriver and how angry he had looked when Dares hadn't listened to him in the first moment, she guessed they were talking about a whole different kind of danger.

"I think he is right."

Iwin's voice pulled Lydia out of her musings and made her realise she had just missed a bit of the conversation.

"While I do not understand the urgency for you to see the Guardian, I do see that it seems very important to you, Doctor. But surely it can wait a few more hours?"

"Every hour we lose is unnecessarily increasing the danger," the Doctor told them seriously.

"I do not understand what danger you are talking about – the sun has never been a danger to us," Dares stated in what Lydia realised was the least friendly tone she had yet heard a villager here use. "But even so it would be more wise to seek the trail to his cave by daylight. Not only will it be easier to make out and follow, but also safer."

"Safer? What do you mean?" the Doctor asked, waiting for the village elder to elaborate.

When Dares didn't, the Time Lord leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms, and pressed on, "The first thing someone asked Janos when he came out of the forest injured, was if he'd gone deeper into it – why?" When he still didn't get any answer, he turned to face Iwin, directing the next question at the other villager. "Come on, I want you to give it to me straight.You said _the edge_ of the forest was safe, you specified it – _why_?" He fixed the man with a piercing look. "What about beyond that, deeper into it? Or further away from the village?"

Iwin exchanged a look with Dares, before answering, "It might not be quite as safe without previous notice of the Guardian. He would be informed if someone was to leave beyond the edge of the forest and make sure that they were kept safe."

"Safe from what?"

"I do not know," he shook his head, "We only know that he makes sure we are safe. Nothing like what happened to Janos today has ever happened before, at least as far as I am aware."

The Doctor rubbed his right eye for a moment, looking rather exasperated with the lack of any concrete information. He finally returned his attention to Dares.

"All right, fine. Then let's do it like this; contact that Guardian of yours and tell him he's about to have visitors– Or, you know what, _no_ ," he said, surprising everyone when he facepalmed himself. "Just let me talk to him directly if you have some way of getting in touch with him. Why didn't you say so sooner?! It would have spared me a lot of trouble!"

"I would have done so if it were possible."

The village elder's reply turned everyone's attention to him.

"You mean you can't?"

"I have not been able to get in contact with the Guardian for the last few days," Dares admitted in a subdued voice. "It was also the reason why I went to Aelmoor, to see if anyone there still had any contact to him."

"You never said," Iwin commented, looking at the older villager with a slight frown.

"I did not want to worry anyone."

"And did they have contact?" the Doctor asked.

"No. The elders there tried to contact him with me, but they did not have any success either," he sighed. "So, you see, it is best to wait for daylight. I will show you the way to the trail that leads to the Guardian's cave, but we will have to wait for dawn. It should not be too far away now."

"In that case I will accompany you," Iwin offered, which Dares accepted with a nod.

"I'd like to come along as well," Lydia stated.

"Are you sure?" the Doctor checked with a serious look.

"Yeah. I'd rather be with you than stay behind on my own," she admitted.

Rona got up from her seat upon hearing this. "I will go and prepare you some food for the journey from the leftovers of the feast."

Lydia briefly wondered that all Rona seemed to do was cooking and catering, as she watched the woman go. But then again, maybe she hadn't been that far off with her first impression of their house being some kind of tavern? The building was slightly bigger than most of the others she had seen, and a lot of the barrels and kegs with the beverages for the festivities had come from here.

Her musings were cut short when the Doctor asked another question.

"Is it far away?"

"Half a day's worth of walking to the trail, and then at least another half to follow it to the cave," Dares replied, to which the Doctor's expression darkened a little. "I will have to leave you once we reach the trail, my old bones do not do well anymore on the more difficult terrain around the mountains."

Lydia stiffled a groan at that; more hiking. _Great_... But she had already asked to come along, and it had been the truth that she would rather stay with the Doctor – her only ticket out of this situation.  
She'd just have to pull herself together.

She continued listening to the men talking for a moment longer, feeling strangely detached about their conversation. Somehow the apparent severity of the situation hadn't truly sunk in yet, listening from the sidelines she didn't really feel like it concerned her as well. (That the villagers didn't seem to be all too worried themselves didn't help much either.)

When her bladder reminded her once again that the red juice she'd kept drinking might not be the best choice of beverage, especially if they were going on a longer journey soon, she made a mental note to ask for water from now on and excused herself from the table to make her way to the privy outside.

The fresh night air felt rather good after the tense atmosphere inside, and so the redhead decided to stay outside for just a little longer after she had relieved herself. She took a seat on the edge of the low stone basin of the well in the back of the house and leaned back against the pump, looking up at the sky and watching the play of colours that the mysterious lights provided. It was hard to believe that such a beautiful view was supposed to be a sign of warning to oncoming danger...

As she sat there looking up into the sky, an aromatic smell reached her nostrils, carried along by a gentle breeze. It was rather unfamiliar. While she could tell that it must have come from the grasses and plants around her, it smelled very different from what she was used.

In that moment it hit her again that she was actually on a different planet.

It was easy to forget about that, since life here looked quite similar to that on Earth; the people, the sky during the day, the vegetation... Only the smell now was different.

Oh, and she wasn't quite sure if a day here had the same length as on Earth. Quite a lot of time had passed since she'd woken up, and during her sleep there had already been almost twelve hours of the day lost. Yet there was no sign of dawn so far, even though the still mild temperature and vegetation suggested that it must at least be early summer, so the nights shouldn't be very long. Then again; that was how it was on Earth, who knew if the same applied here?

Realising that her body clock seemed to be thoroughly confused, she got her phone out of her messenger bag to check how much time had passed since her world had turned upside down. Ignoring the low battery status after a brief second of taking note of it, she checked the clock. According to the display, it was twenty past midnight on an only just started Saturday. When she had entered that alley where the madness had begun, it had been Thursday in the afternoon.  
So much had happened since then, and yet she had been awake and conscious for just roughly the amount of a day... It was mad.

Lydia stared at the display of her phone, her eyes glued to the small icon at the top that indicated she had no reception. Of course she wouldn't have, considering where she was, not much of a surprise there. But what she wouldn't give to be able to call Wolfgang right now, just to have someone who she could talk to about the madness she found herself in, and to ask for advise about what she should do... Even just hearing some assurances that everything was going to turn out all right would have been something.

But even if she did have reception and the possibility to call him, it wouldn't be _her_ Wolfgang on the other end, would it? There would just be some stranger with his voice again; a stranger who didn't know any Lydia.

If this was all truly real and actually happening; would she perhaps never be able to talk to Wolfgang again? Never be teased by him again, never do video nights with him with comfort ice cream eating after she'd had a bad day?  
Would she never see her parents again? No more Cake Sundays with her mum?

The feeling of detachment she'd built up throughout the day crumbled away, and she was once more hit by the realisation that she might well and truly be cut off from her old, familiar life and everyone she held dear – for good.

And that would mean she might really have to face starting a whole new life – all by herself.

That notion overwhelmed her, threatening to break down the tight control she had put her emotions under to keep the feelings of panic and helplessness at bay, in order to function.  
She couldn't afford to think about the ramifications of her situation just now; to consider the impossible impact they could have on her life. She just couldn't, not now.

She pressed her lips together, to the point were it became almost painful, in an attempt to retain her control.

Who knew; maybe - just maybe - there was still the small hope of this as all being just a very vivid dream or hallucination, after all? Because something like that - such an inconceivable loss of her whole life and everyone she had ever known - couldn't really be happening to her, could it?  
And– and even if it _wasn't_ a dream, then surely the Doctor could help her find a way back... Right? There had to be some way back home.  
_There just had to be._

She really wished she could talk to Wolfgang right now.

When Lydia felt hot tears welling up in her eyes, causing the phone display to blur in front of her, she closed them in an attempt to keep the tears from falling, but a few escaped her lashes to roll down her cheeks.

This was no good, she had to regain her composure. Crying wasn't going to do her any good right now and it wouldn't change a thing.  
She took a deep, shaky breath to calm down again and compose herself.

As luck would have it, someone chose that very moment to leave Iwin's house through the back door, and Lydia hastily wiped the tears away with the sleeve of her hoodie.

She heard the person approach her, and when she looked up she saw it was the Doctor.

"There you are!" he stated.

Having wiped her eyes, Lydia noticed she was still holding her phone in her hand, so she quickly put it back into her bag, just as the Doctor came to a stop in front of her.

He hesitated for a moment, studying her, before inquiring, "Everything all right?"

"Yeah," she lied, forcing a smile on her face, but he simply gave her a knowing look that caused it to fade again. "Well, sort of. Just a lot to take in, you know?" she tried reassuring him, as well as herself.

It would be all right, she told herself, she just had to keep on going and move along with things.

The Doctor burrowed his hands in his pockets and took a seat next to her on the stone basin. "Tried calling home?"

The question took her by surprise and she had to swallow down a lump in her throat, her emotions not entirely back under control yet.

"Checked the time," she corrected him. "No reception here, right?"

"I could fix that," he offered.

"What good would it do?" she mumbled, not quite able to hide the bitterness in her voice, as she dropped her gaze.

There was a brief pause.

"I'm sorry. There isn't much I can do about your situation at the moment, especially without the TARDIS."

"Right," Lydia commented, running her fingers through her hair and letting out a deep sigh, hoping not to lose control over her emotions again at the Doctor's admission that he couldn't help right now. "You still have to repair her... You've got a lot on your mind yourself right now, haven't you?" she realised.

"Oh, that's nothing new," he told her nonchalantly. "Got big enough of a mind to easily deal with several things at once."

Lydia rolled her eyes at the arrogant smirk and couldn't help smiling a little.

"Your claim to know me from a TV show back in your own universe is keeping it rather busy, though."

That sobered her up again.

"While you appeared to be honest about that, it's still a little hard to accept."

The young woman's gaze flickered between his eyes in the dim light coming from the houses, wondering what she was supposed to say to that. "I know, it's the same for me," she finally agreed. "Just sitting here and talking to you feels utterly surreal. I keep on falling back into seeing David Tennant in you."

"That's the actor you mistook me for before, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"What's he like then?"

"Uhm." She thought about how to answer the unexpected question for a moment. "Well, he's a really good actor, he can play very different kinds of persons, from what I've seen... But I don't know much about his personal life, or anything, other than that he's known to do pranks... so I can't really tell?"

"Yet you keep seeing him in me?" the Doctor checked with arched brows.

"Well, yeah. He _is_ very much like you when he's playing you." She blinked at the words that had just left her mouth and frowned, trying to ignore the new level of surreal they had just reached with that statement. "That came out kinda weird, didn't it?"

The Doctor didn't answer, just regarded her for a moment with a seriousness that seemed out of place for the line their conversation had taken. "You actually really do believe that to be true, don't you?" he finally stated, in a manner as if he'd just realised something.

"What?"

"Knowing me from a fictional TV show, played by some actor," he clarified.

"Err, yeah...?"

Lydia's frown deepened as she wondered what he meant with that. Hadn't that already been made clear? Why did it seem to surprise him in some way?

Just what was he actually thinking of her...?

Before either of them could say anything else, the back door to Iwin's house was opened again. Both of them turned their heads to look at it and saw Lee coming out of the building. He seemed to hesitate for a moment when he spotted them sitting on the basin of the well, but finally made his way towards them.

"Oh, hello Lee!" the Doctor greeted the young man, all cheery again, throwing Lydia off a little with the sudden change in mood. "Had already enough of the party?"

"There isn't much sense in a celebration when the occasion for it has left, is there?" he replied with a faint smile. "I saw Rona returning alone, so I came to see what kept all of you. Dares told me you are going to see the Guardian in the morning?"

"We are."

"Can I come with you? I asked him, but he told me I should let you decide..." He gave them a hopeful look, and Lydia turned to watch the Doctor's reaction. He appeared rather hesitant about the idea, and when Lee seemed to notice that, he quickly added, "I am not going to be in your way, or of any hinderance. Please? I have never met him before..."

The Doctor directed his attention to Lydia and raised his brows at her, apparently asking silently for her opinion. Surprised that he'd do that, she just shrugged her shoulders at him, not really having an opinon on it. It would be a little mean to outright deny Lee's request though, wouldn't it? What with his curiosity she could relate a little to...  
And he sort of had a right to see just who had been 'taking care' of his life so far.

The Time Lord eventually returned his attention to Lee. "We're leaving at the crack of dawn; be sure to be there because we won't wait for you."

A bright smile appeared on the young villager's face, and he thanked them excitedly, aussuring that they wouldn't have to wait. They all went back inside after that, letting Dares and Iwin know that Lee was coming along, before the young man went off to prepare himself and probably let his family know he'd be gone for a while. The Doctor got into another discussion with the village elder, and his mood soon went back into a more serious one again.

When Rona returned from the fairground with some leftover food to pack for their journey a little later, Lydia caught her in the kitchen to privately (and quite sheepishly) ask the woman if she might have some fresh underwear for her. Rona kindly got her some from her daughters, and Lydia gratefully went to change and put a spare one as well as some kind of light poncho that Rona gave her into her messenger bag. She made a mental note to remember switching the sides on which she wore it every few hours, so as to not get her left shoulder painfully stiff again with the weight.

Lydia didn't really know how to feel when she returned to the common room a little later, waiting with the men for dawn to come. After having her emotions doing another roller-coaster ride earlier, she was a little afraid of letting herself get excited about what felt a bit like some kind of adventure lying ahead, in case it might threaten her control over them again. While the hiking-part didn't really excite her all that much, she couldn't deny feeling some anticipation about seeking out this mysterious Guardian.  
Well, at least it provided some distraction from her earlier thoughts.

She decided that as long as she didn't think too much about everything else, she should be all right.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Lee arrived not too long after Lydia had returned to the common room, packed with a bag slung over his shoulder and looking rather excited, more so than Lydia felt herself. She supposed it must be a rather big thing to him, and once they'd reach this mysterious Guardian, she thought she would probably start feeling the excitement for real, too.

This time the redhead made sure to gently stretch her legs a little before they went on their way, earning herself a few curious looks from the villagers. She wouldn't be able to really stop her muscles from getting sore again (which they actually still were a bit from all the earlier walking) by such a long hiking trip, but at least she could try to lower the danger of getting cramps in her legs – or so she hoped. It was worth the try, at least, even if the looks made her a little self-conscious.

As soon as the first signs of dawn appeared, the Doctor had them starting on their journey, walking next to Dares and leading the way, with the rest of the entourage following closely behind. The morning chill was biting a little through Lydia's borrowed hoodie, leaving her rubbing her arms occasionally, but it wasn't bad enough to make her get the poncho from Rona out of her bag. She was sure the temperature would be rising pretty soon again anyway.

During the first two hours of their trip, there had been only little conversation among the group, and after a while Iwin walked up next to the Doctor to talk to him, leaving Lydia and Lee to hang back alone. Despite appearing to be a bit younger than Lydia, Lee was almost as tall as the Doctor, if not quite as slim as the Time Lord; the youthful villager was of a more athletic stature. She supposed doing a lot of manual work throughout your everyday life would have that effect.  
Looking at Iwin's back in front of her, Lydia noticed he was only a little shorter than Lee – the only one who wasn't towering over her so much that she had to tilt her head back if she wanted to look them in the eyes, was the village elder, Dares.

The redhead sighed quietly. She was at quite a disadvantage here, what with her short legs (as the Doctor had ever so kindly pointed out before) that had to make up for the men's long strides with more and faster movements. She was definitely going to be feeling them for the next few days, even though the pace they kept was still quite comfortable. It was slower than the pace the Doctor had set when they'd arrived on this planet and left the TARDIS, and Lydia thought it might have been due to Dares. She had spotted the Doctor having to lower his pace at times to let the villager elder catch up with him. He probably would've simply run off on his own if he didn't need the man's directions, she mused. The old villager's pace was still quite respectable, though, considering that he looked to be around at least seventy years old.

Lee soon started chattering away at her, keeping her mind occupied with stories about the life on Eden, making her grin at a few anecdotes from his childhood and youth that he shared with her. He was just finishing another one, when Lydia rolled her shoulder, slowly beginning to feel the weight of her messenger bag, with the added weight of some provisions Rona had made her pack in. She remembered her plan to switch sides every few hours and followed up on it, causing Lee to interrupt his tale.

"I can carry it for you," he offered when she pulled the strap over her head.

"Oh, it's all right, I can manage. But thanks," she smiled in reply.

"No, come, it's not a problem!"

Without waiting for her response, he took the bag out of her hand. Lydia watched him shoulder it, a bit stunned that he had simply gone ahead and done that, despite her turning the offer down.

"Uhm, that's really not necessary... I mean, you're already carrying one yourself..."

"It will actually feel a little more balanced to have weight on both of my shoulders," he grinned at her.

She just stared at his genuinely enthusiastic expression for a moment, before shaking her head with a small smile.

"Well... If you're really sure. Thank you," she finally allowed. "But let me have it back as soon as you start to feel tired!"

Not too long after that, the three men in front of them came to a stop around the edge of a forest they were heading for, letting them know they were having a brief rest. Everyone took a seat on the grass, and food and drinks were packed out for a light lunch.

Lydia only realised she was hungry when she tucked into half a piece of bread and some smoked sausage from her provisions. As she washed the bread down with some water, the young woman took a look at their surroundings. The forest in front of them was blocking the view from what lay behind it, but to the left she could see wide, open fields and mountains in the distance. The sun was high in the clear blue sky, and it was beginning to get warm enough for her to consider taking her hoodie off.  
If one ignored the reason for their journey, then the scenery almost reminded her of being on holiday. Living in a city, it was rare enough for her to be in the open countryside like this.

They waited for Iwin and Dares who were the last to finish their meal, the Doctor sitting a little further away from them, uncharacteristically quiet. Lydia briefly wondered what he might be thinking, before Lee picked their earlier conversation up again.

"So..." the young villager trailed off a little later, having finished his tale about a friend from a neighbouring village, who hadn't recognised him after not seeing him for several years. "How about you? Is anyone, you know, waiting for you where you are from?" he asked, for some reason suddenly sounding a little shy.

"What?" Lydia asked, surprised by the question.

"I mean back at your home – do you have anyone waiting for you?"

Not having expected being asked about her home, Lydia hesitated for a second, before averting her eyes and quietly answering, "I don't know..."

Lee frowned in confusion. "How can you not know?"

"I–..." She sighed, rubbing her neck and feeling uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking. "It's, uh, complicated..."

His question made her wonder, though; _was_ there anyone waiting for her back home? Had the time in her world passed the same way as it had here? Was her dad thinking she'd gotten lost somewhere in London, with her mum possibly panicking? Was her mum even aware she was gone?

Could her family and friends end up like those relatives of missing people, who waited for years for a sign of life of their loved ones, constantly pending between hope and doubt of them being alive somewhere and returning one day?

"I am sorry, I did not mean to upset you..."

Lee's words pulled Lydia out of her gloomy thoughts, and she realised they must have shown on her face.

"No, it's all right, my thoughts just ran away with me a little there," she reassured him with a forced smile.

After that, it grew quiet between them for the remaining duration of their rest.

When everyone was finished with their lunch the group continued on, making their way through the forest, enjoying the shade the trees provided them. Halfway through it, Lee seemed to have worked up enough courage to pick up some light conversation again, avoiding any questions about Lydia's home. She was actually rather thankful for the distraction, as she wasn't very keen on brooding over those earlier gloomy thoughts.

They made their way through the forest without any incidents – just as they had all the way before. Lydia was beginning to wonder if there really was any reason for the caution the village elder had advised without the Guardian's knowledge of their journey. So far things had been pretty peaceful.

Around an hour after they had walked out of the forest again, the surroundings began to change into a more hilly landscape. Dares began to slow down before finally coming to a stop, and the Doctor walked on alone for a few metres, until he noticed he wasn't followed. The Time Lord turned around and raised an inquiring brow at the old man, his expression looking rather closed off.

Watching the two men simply staring at each other for a moment with equally, carefully neutral expressions, Lydia wondered if anything had happened between them while she had been paying more attention to the conversation with Lee. During the earlier parts of their trip, she had seen the Doctor talking to Dares and Iwin on occasion, but for the last hour there had been no more talks between them.

"We are almost at the trail; it lies just behind that hill," Dares finally announced, pointing at a hill a little to their right. "I hope you will excuse if I choose not to make my way up with you, my body is not as energetic as it used to be. It will be a simple matter of following the trail once you have reached it."

The Doctor simply nodded at that information.

"How about we have another rest here together, before I accompany Dares back?" Iwin suggested with slight hesitation in his voice.

"I'd like that?" Lydia mentioned with a questioning look at the Doctor. Her legs were slowly beginning to feel quite tired and she'd appreciate another break to gather some new energy before they'd tackle the hill.

The Doctor hesitated, regarding her for a moment, before closing up on the group again.

"All right."

They went through the same motions as before during lunch, and after she'd had a little more to eat, Lydia sat closer to the Doctor in order to talk him about something she had been thinking about earlier.

"When do you think will the solar storm approach?" she asked him quietly.

"It's already started," the Doctor pointed out.

"Oh?" Lydia blinked in surprise. "Then, uhm, when will it get bad? And what exactly will happen once it does?" she asked. "I mean, all I know about solar storms is that they mess with electric fields?"

"Ohh, this is an entirely different scale than what you might be used from Earth, messing with way more than just electric fields. Your people have only witnessed solar storms with Earth's magnetic field providing a nice, protective shield to absorb the worst of it. At worst, you might have perhaps faced a massive power blackout as a result - which, admittedly, probably caused quite a lot of panic considering how dependent your society is on it - but it's actually not all that bad," the Doctor told her in a light tone that belied the serious look he gave her.  
"But for some reason, there has been a rapid decrease in the the magnetic field here on Eden between last night and the night before that, drastically lowering the planet's protection from all kinds of nasty radiation that comes with a storm - especially around these parts of the universe - and it's decreasing even further as we're speaking. Amazingly, it's still stable enough to provide protection for now, but according to the readings I took, within maybe not even two days worth of time it will have decreased to a point where that will no longer be the case. The whole planet will be increasingly exposed to all that radiation out there."

Oh. Okay... Radiation really did sound bad, she agreed on that.

"What scale of radiation are we talking about?" Lydia asked him numbly, not really sure if she actually wanted to hear the answer.

There was a short moment of heavy silence as she held his gaze.

"How to best put it..." the Doctor muttered, before asking, "Are you perhaps familiar with, let's say, the concept of a worst case scanario of a nuclear accident and the consequences?"

Lydia nodded faintly, feeling increasingly worried as horror stories of Chernobyl and the recent Fukushima flashed through her mind.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he commented quietly, before continuing, "Well. Imagine the effects of such a major accident, with this entire planet being ground zero."

She could do nothing else but stare slack-jawed at the Doctor after hearing that statement.

"Is that bad?"

Hearing Lee's voice several seconds later pulling her out of her shocked haze, Lydia turned her head to see that the villagers had apparently been listening to their conversation. The two older villagers' expressions didn't show any of the worry she thought they should be feeling, and Lee simply looked confused.

Right. They probably didn't even know what radiation is...

Working her way through the shocked numbness the Doctor's statement had created, she replied, "Uh, yes... _Very_ bad, actually. Radiation can make you very, very sick – to the point of dying." And in a very unpleasant way at that, she silently thought.

"But sickness does not kill?" Lee countered with a frown.

"...What?" Lydia could only blink numbly at his claim.

"I know it is not a very pleasant feeling, but you get better again after sickness?"

Lydia shook her head. "No, not always; if an illness gets very bad, it can be fatal. And there are some pretty horrible diseases..."

Lee just looked at her blankly, apparently without any understanding of what she was trying to say, which in turn made her frown.

"Don't tell me no one here has ever been badly sick before, to the point where you feared for their life?"

Lee shook his head, his own frown deepening in confusion.

"No terminal diseases? Nothing at all?" she checked incredulously.

It was Dares who answered her question, when Lee just shook his head again. "Not for a very long time, several generations at least. The Guardian has made sure that we do not succumb to illness."

"The Guardian did?" The Doctor checked with raised brows. "Now, that explains something I've been wondering about."

Lydia just gave him a questioning look, rather confused herself by this point.

The Doctor redirected his attention to her. "When I scanned Janos yesterday, the readings showed traces of some genetic manipulation. Nothing too drastic, mind, just bits that advance a few already present features of the human body. Janos was back on his feet pretty quickly, wouldn't you say?" he asked in a light tone, without giving her a chance to reply before he continued, "It actually becomes a quite common evolutionary stage in humans, thanks to genetic engineering – in the future." The Doctor's voice became more serious and his expression darkened a little. "It's way too early for humans of this era to be so advanced, even for a planet I haven't known about before. I really can't wait to ask that Guardian person some questions..."

Dares' face didn't show much of what he was thinking, but Lee and Iwin listened to the Doctor mostly in confusion. And while Lydia was quite confused as well, she supposed she had a much better idea of what the Doctor was suggesting than they had.  
It was all still very mysterious, though...

"But all that doesn't change the fact that the radiation following the solar storm will be deadly, even to them," the Doctor continued after a brief pause. "So, this Guardian made sure they don't get easily sick, probably even eliminated the chances of them getting certain genetic disorders, ensuring that they don't have anything to worry about. Sounds quite comfortable, right?" he asked rhetorically, sticking his lower lip out a little, eyebrows raised. "Just live from day to day without a single care in the world – everything is being taken care of for you, after all. But there's a tiny little problem with this fake paradisical life; what if the Guardian is no longer there to take care of things one day?"

He let his words sink in for a moment, and while he was looking at Lydia during his lecture, it was very obvious that it was directed at the villagers as well, if not even more so.

"Having never learned how to protect themselves, how to take care of things and what to do if they _do_ happen to get seriously sick or face danger one day, they're completely helpless on their own. They obviously don't know how to appropriately react when there actually _is_ something to very much worry about."

A deep frown fell over the village elder's face upon hearing these words. "He made sure there was no reason for it!" the man replied curtly, sounding irritated.

"Now, I do not think the Doctor meant any offense with that?" Iwin suggested, trying to placate the older villager, and gave the Doctor a questioning look as if he wasn't really sure about that himself.

"No, he very well meant what he said, and I will no longer listen to this nonsense!" Dares declared, before directing his attention back to the Doctor. "We are able to be without worry, because the Guardian made sure we live in a world where there is no need for it! My people do not know the conflict our ancestors escaped from; the greed, the wars. We are free to enjoy our lives to the fullest and be at our best, thanks to him." He paused for a moment to let out an angry sniff, his nostrils flaring. "We know a better world than the one you are trying to impose on us from the outside! How _dare_ you make his caring sound like it is something bad and deface our culture!" he angrily exclaimed.

"Because right now you're helpless!" the Doctor retorted just as angrily, surprising Lydia with the sudden vehemence. "You're completely lost without him because he didn't make sure you'd know how to look after yourselves in case anything ever happened to him! And look where that put you now? Someone was already injured, and all of your people are facing mortal danger! _And you don't even care enough to do anything about it_ ," he bluntly told the old man in a disgusted tone. "It was egoistical and reckless of him to make all your lives so utterly dependent on him, just so he could play God!"

Silence fell over the small group.

Lee watched the two angry men glaring at each other wide-eyed, and while Iwin also looked surprised, it wasn't quite to the same shocked degree the younger villager was showing. Lydia had to admit she was also taken by surprise at how fast their discussion had turned into a heated argument. She supposed she did have a point when she had been assuming something might have already happened between them earlier.

Everyone was stirred out of their surprised stupor when the Doctor suddenly stood up from the ground.

"I think we've rested long enough," he declared curtly, shooting Lydia a look.

The redhead exchanged a look with him, before hesitantly beginning to gather her things. Lee soon began to help her, and when they had packed their things, he looked torn between the two parties, unsure of what to do.

"Do you still want to meet the Guardian?" the Doctor asked him, seemingly aware of the young man's uncertainty.

Lee nodded hesitantly. "If that is all right...?"

"Your decision," the Doctor shrugged, voice neutral.

Lee looked at the other two villagers, silently asking for permission. Dares didn't take note of him, too busy glaring at the Doctor, but Iwin gave him a nod.

"Go. I will accompany Dares back."

"Thank you for everything, Iwin."

Despite his anger, the Doctor still had the grace to acknowledge their host, who inclined his head in response.

"Have a safe journey."

Lydia said a brief goodbye to the two villagers, before catching up with the Doctor who was already walking towards the hill they had been told to head for, Lee following only moments later.  
An uncomfortable silence hung over the trio as they made their way up the hill. Lydia didn't know what to think of what had just occured and everything she'd learned, her throughts running wild.  
How the hell was a person supposed to keep up with all these sudden twists and still think clearly?

The silence lasted until they arrived at the top of the hill and the Doctor exclaimed, "Ah! There we go," his voice sounding a little less strained than before.

The redhead had to squint and shield her eyes with a hand against the afternoon sun that greeted them at the top in order to make out what the Doctor was referring to. Once they adjusted to the brightness, she saw the beginning of a trodden path in the grasses down the hill, surrounded by small, light grey rocks that brought the path into prominence.

The way down the hill went faster and was, naturally, a little easier on the body, which Lydia was thankful for. When she arrived at the bottom, she saw the Doctor slowing down after he set foot on the trail to inspect the rocks on the left side of it. When she caught up with him, she spotted what had caught his attention; there was a silver-coloured, oval device glinting in the sunlight between the rocks.  
Lydia frowned for a moment in confusion, before remembering something.

"Is this one of those transmitters?"

"Yep," the Doctor replied, digging his screwdriver out of his jacket pocket, just as Lee approached them to look curiously over Lydia's shoulder.

She briefly wondered what these people could possibly need ultrasound for in the middle of nowhere, since there wasn't any village around.

The Doctor pointed the screwdriver at the transmitter – and frowned when nothing happened. He pointed the unlit tip towards his face to look at it, pressing the button on its side twice.

"Aw, come on!" he whined, pulling a face. "Don't tell me the messed up magnetic field is starting to get to you, too?"

When still nothing happened after he pressed it for a third time, he hit the screwdriver repeatedly against the palm of his other hand, until the tip finally lit up with the familiar whirring sound.

"Ha!" With that triumphant exclamation, he went to scan the transmitter.

"And?" Lydia inquired after a moment.

"Dead like the rest," he announced, not sounding very surprised at that, and pocketed the screwdriver again, before giving a sniff and simply moving along.

Lydia exchanged a look with Lee, before shrugging at him and following the Time Lord.

As they continued their way on the trail, she spotted a few more transmitters between the rocks bordering the path. Their pace, now set by the Doctor, had increased, and when the surrounding landscape changed into even more hills and mountains around them within the next hour, she realised that the trail seemed to lead along some of them – meaning the climbing had only just begun. Her legs were already feeling a little sore, and she could only sigh at the prospect.

Well, she'd just have to pull herself together.

The physical exercise and concentrating on where she put her feet while they were making their rocky way up between two hills, had one good point, though; it kept all those previous thoughts running wild at bay.

She was concentrating so hard on her feet, in fact, that she nearly ran into the Doctor's back when he had suddenly come to a stop in front of her.

"Oh, would you look at that magnificent creature!" he commented with an awed voice, looking at the sky.

Following his line of sight, thankful that the sun was slowly setting and thus making it easier to look into the sky, she was about to mention that she couldn't see anything, when she noticed a moving spot in the distance.

"What is that?"

"Keep looking, it should be close enough for you to make out soon." The Doctor didn't take his eyes off it, even though he inclined his head towards her while answering.

He was proven right, when, after a moment, Lydia could see that it seemed to be some huge kind of bird. The closer it came, the bigger it actually seemed, and when it was close enough for Lydia to notice that its feathers seemed to be of a blue color, she was growing a little awed at its size, too – and slightly wary, to be perfectly honest.

"Ohh, look at that wingspan!" the Doctor gushed.

"I _am_..." she mumbled in return, feeling increasingly wary of the bird. Especially since it seemed to be heading right for them.

Her wariness began to turn into alarm when it came closer still, giving a loud screech.

"And that are some rather big talons..." the Time Lord then went to mention less excitedly, his brow knitting into a frown.

Lydia gave him a slightly panicked look as the bird increased its speed, apparently not intending to change its course. "Err, Doctor...?"

The anxiety in her voice seemed to bring his attention fully back to the situation, just as another screech tore from the creature's beak before it made a dive straight for them.

"Get down!" the Doctor shouted and lunged at the redhead, taking her down with him and out of the way of the huge bird's talons.

Lydia hit the ground with a low gasp, barely registering her left elbow and hip colliding with some rocks thanks to the adrenaline surging through her body, as her short legs fell into a tangle with the Time Lord's longer ones. The Doctor moved quickly off her again, and when she pushed her upper body up on her other elbow, she saw him already back on his feet. He stood next to her, studying the bird that was flying in circles a little further away to the left of them. The creature kept its distance for several moments, seeming to watch them just the same, before finally going for another dive at them, causing Lydia's heart to skip a beat in fear.

The Doctor didn't move, though, his gaze flickering from the bird to the trail they had fallen out of and which was curving away from them to their right, then back to the bird again.

"Ohh, so _that's_ what the transmitters are for!" he suddenly exclaimed and got his screwdriver out. He fingered it for a moment and then pointed it at the quickly nearing bird – before cursing when nothing happened. "Come on, come on, _come oooon_!" he shouted at the screwdriver, hitting it repeatedly against his palm.

Lydia felt panic rising within her when the huge bird came closer and closer, talons out, and just as she was about to shout at the Doctor to watch out, the screwdriver finally whirred to life. The creature gave a painful screech, changing its course at the last moment and steering clear of the Doctor only inches before its talons would have descended on him.

He muttered a quiet "Sorry", before raising his arm and pointing the screwdriver at the bird, the whirring growing louder and making it screech again.

After circling them once, the creature finally flew away into the direction it had been coming from.

Only when the distance between them had grown big enough for the bird to be a barely visible spot in the sky again, did the Doctor let go of the screwdriver's button, the whirring replaced by an odd silence. He watched it disappear from sight completely, before turning to face Lydia.

"Are you all right?" he asked, leaning forward and offering her a hand.

"I think so, yeah?" she replied cautiously, taking his hand and thanking him when he helped her up, her heart rate slowly calming down again. "Are you?"

"'Course," he replied, looking surprised at the question being returned at him.

Once Lydia was standing upright again, he let go of her hand.

"See, I wasn't that far off about the perimeter, after all," he told her with a wave at the stones surrounding the path. "Basically an ultrasound-fence to keep wildlife away – clever and subtle, I'll give him that."

Lydia couldn't help smiling in amusement at the smug 'told you so' tone in his voice, the remains of adrenaline running through her body paired with the relief that the huge bird was gone leaving her a little giddy.

She then turned around to make sure Lee was also all right when she remembered there were three of them.

It seemed the Doctor noticed the same thing she did at the same time, as she heard him asking, "Where is Lee...?" at exactly the same moment when she was thinking it.

 


	10. Chapter 10

_[Previously:]_

_It seemed the Doctor noticed the same thing she did at the same time, as she heard him asking, "Where is Lee...?" at exactly the same moment when she was thinking it._

* * *

Lydia scanned their surroundings with her eyes but couldn't make out any sign of the young villager. She exchanged a look with the Doctor before moving back down the trail with him. When they walked just a little around the bend of the mountain which the trail wound around, she spotted the huddled form of Lee a few meters down and off the trail, looking like he had just sat up.

"Doctor!" she called out to get his attention, but realised it was unnecessary when she saw the Time Lord already jogging towards the villager as she turned to face him. Lydia followed his example and jogged after him, slowing down a little when she almost tripped over some stones, taking more cautious steps on the rocky ground.  
Coming to a stop in front of the men, she saw that Lee was holding his right shoulder (and was that blood she could see darkening the sleeve of his maroon, tunic-like top?), with the Doctor crouching in front of him.

"Show me?" she heard the older man prompting.

"It is really nothing," Lee replied, but removed his hand from his shoulder nonetheless to reveal two slash wounds that ran diagonally across it under his torn clothing, one a little longer than the other. "I was just surprised when it came at me and lost my footing. Bet I did some impressing tumbling, though," he grinned weakly, but sobered again when he took a look at his bleeding shoulder, soil and tiny stone grains clinging to it.

"Looks like some of its talons got you," the Doctor commented, gently placing his fingers around the wounds while taking a closer look. "Lydia, would you hand me your water please?" he requested, not taking his eyes off the shoulder as he carefully tore the fabric around it further apart.

Lydia automatically went for her messenger bag on her side, only to be reminded that she wasn't carrying it when her hand met her thigh. Letting her eyes wander over Lee's form, she realised he wasn't carrying it, either... She looked around them and spotted her bag lying a little further away, before making her way over to it.  
Picking it up, she felt a little bad when she instantly thought to check if her phone was still there and undamaged, when her concern should rather be with Lee being injured. But it was her only link to her home, stating her own actual date and time and with all her contacts and photos of people she held dear on it – perhaps the only physical memento she had of her home now, if she were to accept how her situation looked like...

Mentally shaking the last thought away and walking back, she discreetly looked for her phone while rummaging through her bag for the waterskin Rona had given her. Her fingers felt for any obvious cracks in the display, and when she didn't feel any on the smooth surface, she gave a quiet sigh of relief. She then grabbed the waterskin and handed it to the Doctor.

"You're lucky it was just your shoulder that got caught, and only superficial at that," the Doctor commented in a conversational tone while pouring water out of the skin over Lee's shoulder, making the young man hiss at the pain. "Bit more to your left, and it might have been your neck – don't think that would have been very pleasant."

Lydia winced in sympathy while she watched the dirt being washed away, wondering if that last remark had been really necessary; both her and Lee seemed to be already shaken enough as it was. She continued watching as the Doctor made a makeshift bandage out of some clean looking piece of cloth that had been lying in his lap when she returned to them, briefly wondering were he had gotten it from. Probably pulled it out from the dubious depths of his pockets while she had gone to get her bag, she mused.

It didn't take long until the Doctor seemed to be done with his work, confirming Lydia's assumption with an, "There, all patched up. That should do for the time being."

He stood up and Lee followed his example, cautiously rolling his shoulder with a slight wince, before giving them an expectant look.

"Shall we continue then?" the villager was quick to prompt, surprising Lydia.

"You sure you're all right to move on right away?" she asked a little worried.

"Of course! I hurt my shoulder, not my legs," he grinned in reply.

Lydia fought not to roll her eyes at that. It seemed like this was a common thought among his people; as long as it wasn't their legs that had been hurt, they apparently didn't see any problem with walking.  
The redhead put her messenger bag over her shoulder in response and raised her brows at the Doctor in a silent question.

"You're really sure?" the Time Lord checked again with Lee. When the latter gave a determined nod at that, the Doctor declared, "Well then; allons-y!" before taking the lead up to the trail again.

Despite the situation, Lydia found herself smiling faintly at the last exclamation. It was the first time she'd heard him say that particular phrase, even if it wasn't quite as enthusiastic as she was used to hearing. It also made the feeling of surreality return for a second, though, especially after what just had happened, but she chose not to think any further on that.

Seeing Lee awkwardly adjusting his bag on his good shoulder, she offered to carry it for him, commetning that they'd be even then, but he refused the offer firmly with a big smile.

With that they went to once again follow the Doctor.

* * *

The trio soon fell back into their previous pace, with the adaption of keeping a more wary eye on their surroundings, especially in Lydia's case. She was so spooked out by the close encounter with the bird, that for the first hour or two she startled at every unfamiliar, louder sound around them, losing count of how often her heart had skipped a beat, and kept shooting wary glances towards the sky every so often. The thought that she just wasn't cut out for dangerous situations like that briefly crossed her mind.  
The Doctor had signaled for them to stop once, seeming to listen to something he had apparently heard carried over by the wind, making the redhead tense up nervously after just having calmed down again a little. But when nothing had crossed their way after a tense three minute wait, they'd continued on.

The sun was beginning to set when Lydia's body finally began to protest in earnest at the day's exertion, her left hip having begun to throb painfully a while ago from the earlier impact with the ground. Her shoulder was also beginning to ache, since she couldn't switch sides for her bag with her throbbing hip, and her attention was increasingly directed towards the uneven ground in front of her heavy feet rather than on her surroundings.  
The Doctor was leading the way further ahead, Lee a little behind him, and the distance between Lydia and the men continuously grew as she fell back more and more with time, having trouble to keep up with the pace that was set and their longer strides.

She was just considering asking for them to stop for a moment, when the Doctor threw a glance back over his shoulder and came to a stop on his own. He waited for both of them to catch up with a slight frown on his face.

"Sorry," Lydia panted when she arrived next to the men. "I think I'm going to need a rest soon..." she finally admitted with a slight wince, unable to help feeling like she was being a hindrance.

The Doctor studied her for a moment, before commenting, "I think you might have already used a one a while ago..."

There was a moment of awkward silence following that statement – she couldn't really argue with him there.

"I'll keep an eye out for any places that might serve as a shelter for the night, so you two can have a proper rest," he finally continued. "Can you still go on for just a little longer?"

Lydia nodded and said a quick thanks, feeling relieved at the prospect of getting some rest. Noticing that Lee was a little sweaty and looking relieved at that, too, made her also feel somewhat less like a hindrance. He seemed to be slowly reaching a point where he needed a break as well, and Lydia was sure his shoulder must have been giving him some trouble.

It was dark by the time the Doctor found them a suitable shelter. He had led them away from the trail into a surrounding forrest and down to what appeared to be a dried-up stream bed, having them walk along it for a few minutes, until they reached a point where it ended in a wall of soil from higher lying ground. The roots of a huge tree curled like curtains down from the higher level, creating a canopied, cave like spot before the wall cut the stream bed off.

The Doctor bent forward to avoid hitting the roots with his head and took a quick look around it, before becokining them to follow him in. Lydia ducked her head and went in first, Lee following soon after.

"All right, this should be good enough," the Doctor declared once they were all underneath the tree's roots, sitting down cross-legged near the entrance so there was more room for the other two in the small space.

After they rested for a while, having a quick bite to eat and something to drink, the Time Lord suggested, "Might be a good idea to try and get some kip, you two. I'll wake you in a few hours."

Close to the soil wall, the temperature inside the shelter was slightly cooler, so Lydia got the poncho Rona had given her out of her bag and put it on, then used her messenger bag as a pillow. She struggled for a few minutes, trying to find a remotely comfortable position on the uneven hard ground that didn't involve lying on her bruised hip or elbow, or poking said elbow into Lee's side – who was already snoring quietly, she noticed.

Once the redhead finally lay still, she only had a few moments to briefly ponder over the surreal day, before exhaustion caught up with her and she fell asleep, too.

* * *

The ominous lights in the sky increased, more and more shades of colour replacing the black of the night, each streak carrying the deadly radiation with it.

She was looking around her frantically, searching for the mercury between bushes and trees, then moving on to the abandoned cottages around her – but she didn't even know _what_ she was looking for. The Doctor had never told her, never explained! She only knew that they needed it to escape this death trap of a planet. If they didn't find it soon, they would die from the radiation!

She was sinking deeper and deeper into panic with each new light in the sky. But not only were the colours of the sky changing now, but those of her surroundings, too; she suddenly found dark red dunes and hills replacing the cottages and forest around her.

And then the Doctor was standing in front of her.

She was yelling at him that she couldn't find the mercury, and asking what she was supposed to do, despair clinging to her voice.  
It was only then that she noticed he wasn't wearing his usual pinstriped suit and coat, but a familiar orange spacesuit.

"Who needs Mercury?" he asked and threw his arms wide open, a crazed grin distorting his face. "We have Mars!"

With that the lights concentrated behind him and burst into an explosion that tore the night apart, a bright fireball engulfing his imposing figure in the blink of an eye. And still the wide grin wouldn't leave his face, as he stared at her with a wild look in his dark eyes amidst the flames licking at his face.

* * *

Lydia's eyes flew open with a gasp. For a moment she felt disoriented, staring at a canopy of soil and roots that she could make out in the darkness in confusion, before remembering where she had fallen asleep. After a few minutes of collecting her thoughts, she sat up and crossed her arms in front of her chest, feeling cold from the damp, cool air in the shelter (and most probably from just having woken up from a way too short sleep, too). Feeling decidely less rested than she had hoped, and a bit shaken from the dream, she took a look around and was surprised to see that Lee was no longer lying next to her.  
Just as she turned around to check if the Doctor was still there, she saw the Time Lord poking his head into the entrance of the shelter from outside.

"Ah, you're awake, good! We should move on soon."

Lydia nodded in reply after simply staring at him for a good second, and got up to meet him outside, groaning when she realised just how sore her body was. In addition to her bruised hip, her back was now also aching from the hard ground, not to mention the muscles in her legs screaming at her from their overexertion.

All in all, that wasn't how she would have liked to start a day in general – and then there was also that dream still ghosting around the back of her mind, sending a shiver down her back. (Or maybe that was just the cool air.)  
So it wasn't in an exactly cheerful mood that she approached the Doctor, bleary-eyed and still with her arms crossed under the poncho in a vain attempt to keep the chill away. Looking at him standing there, bathed in the faint lights from the sky, she couldn't help being reminded of his crazed expression amidst the flames from her dream for a moment.

"You all right?" the Time Lord inquired.

Realising that she must be staring at him, she lowered her gaze and mumbled, "Just tired."

A crackling sound came from somewhere above them, and Lydia looked up to see Lee stepping out of the covers of some trees and climbing his way down to them. Following his example, she made her way up to relieve herself before they continued moving – and to have a moment to compose herself after the intimidating dream.

As soon as that was done and they had gathered their things, the trio made their way back to the trail, the colourful lights in the sky lighting the night up enough to see the ground and their closest surroundings by. (And unsettling her a little from the memory of danger they had carried in her dream.)  
The first hour passed in silence, Lee and her taking their time to fully wake up, and by the time the sun rose, Lydia's mood had improved a little; even more so once they had a short rest for breakfast around what felt like late morning, her body feeling less sore by that point.

But even so she couldn't help her thoughts drifting back to the dream and where her subconscious mind must have gotten the latter images from, mashing them up with the current threat they were facing.

Mars. That spacesuit. The explosion. The crazed grin.

Oh, she knew where it came from – she just wondered _why_ her subconsciousness had brought it up. Was it because she was irrationally fearing some kind of explosion from all the radiaton once the protective magnetic field was gone, like from a nuclear bomb or something? No, she didn't think that was it, even for a dream that thought was just a bit too silly and irrational. The radiation would be deadly enough on its own; a silent and invisible killer. (And wasn't that a merry thought?)

So if that wasn't the reason, then what was?

Maybe because the Doctor had revealed where in his personal timeline they were last night, and because she knew what was going to happen around that time?  
Now, _that_ line of thought sounded much more plausible. And thinking that it might actually still be awaiting him...

Lydia almost tripped over a rock at that thought, and absentmindedly gave Lee a quick, reassuring smile, when he had looked over his shoulder at the sound and sent a worried look her way.

The realisation that these particular happenings might still be awaiting the Doctor sat heavily in her stomach. She remembered watching that episode aghast, actually creeped out by the Doctor, but eventually feeling so very sorry at how broken he had seemed after losing his way and realising what he had done...

A traitorous idea suddenly crossed her mind; if she mentioned something to him, gave him some kind of warning... could she maybe - just maybe - help him avoid that situation from ever happening?

The young woman raised her head for a moment and stared at the back of the Doctor's head, before lowering it again, contemplating the idea with a slight frown directed at her Converse clad feet. After a moment she released a heavy sigh, shaking her head at herself. No, it was probably a very bad idea. She shouldn't try messing with things, had no idea what the conseqeuences of changing something might be. How dangerous they could be.

What was she even considering something stupid like that for?!

"Penny for your thoughts?"

She startled in surprise at the sudden question and noticed the Doctor had fallen back in step with her, giving her a curious look.

"Oh, uhm. Just... everything, really," she replied with a shrug and slightly nervous smile, strangely feeling as if she'd been caught on her dangerous contemplation.

Several seconds passed in silence before the Doctor spoke again. "You're taking all of this surprisingly well, you know."

Lydia looked up at him in surprise. "I am?"

"Yeah. No panicking, no pestering me with questions what we're going to do if we run out of time... Just sort of... going with the flow," he commented casually. "Almost seems like you've been in situations like these before?"

Her eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline at his suggestion. "What?" She stared at him, not quite trusting her ears to have heard him correctly, before scoffing. "Yeah, right; because I totally make a habit of hanging out with fictional people on foreign planets," she replied, her voice laced with sarcasm.

He simply raised a brow at that, not commenting on her sarcasm, and waited for a proper response.

"It's just..." She tried to think of what to say, running a hand through her hair (which was beginning to feel a little greasy close to her head, she absentmindedly noticed). "Well, yeah, I guess I do just go along with things... Because, honestly? I have no idea what else I could do."

The Time Lord did not have a chance to reply to that, because Lee's excited voice suddenly caught their attention.

"Doctor, Lydia!"

They caught up with the excited villager, who pointed his finger at a mountain face in front of them. Lydia followed the direction he pointed to with her eyes and caught sight of the trail they were following going down a slope, ending at what looked very much like a man-made entrance to a cave, not too far away.

After exchanging a look with her and Lee, the Doctor was quick to take the lead again, making his way towards the cave with a quickened pace.

* * *

It didn't take them long to reach the end of the trail, and the Doctor didn't hesitate for even a second to walk through the entrance of the cave. Lydia and Lee followed him in, stepping into a dark, cavernous room that was only weakly illuminated by the sunlight that fell through the entrance. It was bare, except for a huge table in the center that was filled with several objects lying on its top.

It wasn't quite what Lydia had expected to see.  
Was this really the right cave? There was no real sign of any person inhabiting this place...

Lee made his way over to the table, while the Doctor was busy looking around the rest of the room, and looked through the things lying on it. After a moment he picked up what looked like a landscape painting, painted on a piece of cloth that was taut between a wooden frame.

"I remember this! My aunt made this to thank the Guardian, after my uncle received help fom him when a storm had destroyed most of their harvest several years ago..."

Lydia went over to him and took a closer look at the objects on the table, too. There were carved sculptures, more paintings, decorative textiles...

"Huh... Maybe this is some kind of altar then? To offer gifts for him?"

"Well, I'm sure he would like to be gifted with some power right now," the Doctor's voice joined in from a far, dark corner of the room.

Directing her gaze towards him, Lydia could just make out that he was crouching in front of a wall and seemed to be fumbling with something. Exchanging a curious look with Lee, she made her way over to the Time Lord.

"Found something?"

"Yup."

He pointed his index finger towards the ceiling a little to his left without looking up, and Lydia followed it with her eyes. It took her a moment to notice what looked suspiciously like a camera hiding in the shadows of a corner.

"Oh." She blinked in surprise, still finding it weird to see technology amidst this medieval looking civilsation. "Do you think he is watching us?"

"No, looks very much unpowered – like the other bits we found so far. But!" He paused his speech for a second, while he yanked open what looked like the cover of some sort of panel in the wall that she hadn't even noticed before. "I found this. Well, that badly hidden cable from the camera leading to it wasn't making that terribly hard, really," he commented and pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. "And how lucky that I just happen to have an independent source of power on me to try _this_!" he finished while pointing the device it at the opened panel.

Lydia raised her eyebrows in silence when nothing happened after several seconds of the Doctor pointing the screwdriver at the wall.

"Aw, come on!" the Doctor exclaimed in frustration and began hitting the device against his palm once again. "Little bit of magnetic interference surely wouldn't knock you out, hey?"

There was still no response from the screwdriver after another moment, and when Lydia was just about to give up on it and ask if there was any other way to help with whatever he had planned, the device finally whirred to life.

"There we go!"

The Doctor grinned triumphantly at her for a moment (tickling the memory of her dream back to the surface of her mind for a second), before pointing the screwdriver back at the panel. He seemed to change the settings a few times and pointed it at different parts of the panel, before the room was suddenly illuminated by soft light.

Looking around in surprise, Lydia made out two spotlights in the ground shining their light on the wall to their right, but which started to flicker after a few seconds. She heard the sonic whirring increasing, and suddenly the massive looking stone wall in the flickering spotlight moved slowly to the side, revealing it to be some kind of apparently hidden door leading to another dark room.

Once the wall stopped moving, the whirring came to a stop and the Doctor stood up, tossing the screwdriver into the air once before catching it again with a smug grin. He then made his way over to the revealed entrance, Lydia and a rather startled looking Lee following him, throwing them a glance over his shoulder.

"Let's have an audience with this famous Guardian then, shall we?"

The hidden room behind the wall was darker than the one they had just left, the flickering beams of the spotlights not reaching very far into it. It didn't take long for the Doctor to find another panel near the entrance, though, and make use of it, and soon enough the room was flooded with weak light coming from the ceiling. Turning the power on inside that room seemed to trigger the mechanism of the wall-door, as it began to slide back into place, closing the entrance again and catching their attention.

When there was just a crack left between the two walls, the light in the room seemed to shine brighter, to which Lydia saw the Doctor raise a curious brow. Once the entrance shut closed, he tried his screwdriver again – which immediately responded this time. The Time Lord then checked the closed wall with it.

"Hm, no wonder I didn't find anything during my scans before; quite the isolation worked into this," he said, knocking twice on the smooth wall.

Only then did Lydia realise that the walls in this room were smooth and looked metallic, and not naturally uneven and stony, like those in the previous room. That made her turn around to take a proper look at their now lit up surroundings, and she gasped at the sight; it was full of high-tech looking things, having more the appearance of a NASA control room, or something along the lines, rather than a cave set into a mountain!

Lee looked even more surprised than her as he stared at their surroundings with his mouth hanging open. He looked completely out of place there in his old-fashioned tunic.

"Are these all Workings of Old?" he asked in an awed voice.

It was beyond weird to have him, looking like he was propelled into the far-away future, calling the technology 'old'.

"Yup," the Doctor answered, popping the 'p'.

Lydia was surprised to hear his voice sounding further away, and turned her gaze away from Lee's wide-eyed face to see that the Doctor had already made his way deeper into the room, fiddling with several devices that he passed.

"And I have some very good news; some of these contain mercury. There should be enough to get the TARDIS back to working," he announced and looked up to give Lydia a small grin. "Well, at least that's something – since the actual reason for our visit doesn't seem to be here."

The redhead went over to him and returned his grin, feeling immensely relieved at these news. They had arrived in time and even found what they needed – everything seemed to be turning out well, after all!

"So, what exactly is this mercury stuff then?" she found herself asking, her curiosity reappearing. Especially after that dream, where she hadn't even known what to look for while searching for it.

The Doctor stared at her. "It's... well, mercury." Seeing her looking none the wiser, he added, "Oh come on, surely you've heard of mercury before? It's nothing unfamiliar on Earth!" When she still just looked at him blankly, he tried more hesitatingly, "Or perhaps quicksilver?"

"Ohh! You mean like the 'liquid metal used in thermometers'-kind of quicksilver?"

"Yes, exactly!" he exclaimed before frowning. "You didn't know it was called mercury?" he asked, sounding rather incredulous.

"Not really, I only ever heard of it referred to as quicksilver..." Lydia couldn't stop herself from facepalming. She felt really stupid now that all along she'd been wondering what the hell this mysterious mercury was, when it was just what she'd known as 'quicksilver'; the more common term smiliar to its German counterpart.

She must have looked like a right idiot just now, asking what it was.

"And here I had been thinking we were looking for something highly advanced that might only be found on other planets, or something..." she mumbled.

"What, like on the _planet_ Mercury...?" It was obvious that the Doctor was trying to hold back a chuckle and had trouble keeping a straight face.

"Oh, go on, laugh," Lydia told him, breaking into an embarrassed grin herself, feeling her cheeks warming with a blush. "I'm kind of about to laugh at myself."

While the Doctor didn't quite laugh, his amused smile did widen for a moment, before he returned his attention back to the room. Lydia followed him deeper into it, her eyes taking in all the different devices and machines, until they reached a huge tank with murky liquid inside, dozens of cables hanging out of it and leading to some of the devices around it.  
The Doctor made his way over to one of ithem and began scanning the screen on it with his screwdriver.

"Would you look at that," he muttered, not taking his eyes off the screen. "He actually even manipulated the flow of the magnetic field that was linked to a very clever shielding system, turning the planet practically invisible to any scanners... No wonder the field is fluctuating so badly! This Guardian-person truly did create his very own planet-sized zoo for himself to shape as he pleased," he finished his ramble with a snide remark. "Controlling all these people's lives..."

"Yeah, but... it's not like they didn't know, is it?" The words had left Lydia's mouth before she had really thought about them.

"What do you mean?" he asked, finally tearing his gaze away from the screen to look at her.

She collected her thoughts for moment this time. "Uhm, well... While I do understand your dislike at the idea and agree with you in some ways, the people here seem to be quite happy with it? They do seem to live quite happy lives... I mean, like I said, they are obviously well aware of how dependent they are on the Guardian and that he controlls everything around them – and apparently quite fine with that?" she remarked a little hesitantly.

"Because they don't know any better," he replied in a firm tone, making it sound a bit like a reprimand. "These people deserve to be in control of their own lives and fate, and not for some stranger to play God over them."

The finality in his voice made Lydia shy away from further commenting on the topic, and for some reason she felt like she had just been criticised by the Doctor.

He moved away from the device he had been standing in front of to another one next to it, which was a little bigger and had two differrently sized screens, and went to check it, too, in silence. When the silence continued as he took his glasses out of his jacket pocket, put them on and began typing on some kind of keyboard he had found, Lydia was starting to feel awkward after their previous exchange, with Lee only now making his way over to them, and decided to direct her attention to the huge tank to distract herself.

However, it wasn't long before the Doctor spoke again, his voice sounding grave. "As I thought..."

Just then Lydia spotted something grey floating around inside the murkiness of the tank and took a step back, feeling a little creeped out. Were there some kind of fish in there? Or the alien equivalent of fish? (And would they also be so huge and dangerous like that bird that had attacked them?)

"What is that?" she asked, pointing at the tank, trying to keep her voice calm.

The Doctor turned around to face the tank as well. "The main control console of this whole system – with a living body hooked up to it so it can be operated straight from the brain. Just with a not so living body inside it anymore..." he murmured in reply, a blank expression falling over his face.

Lydia stared at the murky liquid in the tank in horror when the meaning behind the Doctor's reply sank in. She watched the grey bit floating in its murky depths drift closer to the glass wall, which was soon revealed to be a partly burnt looking hand – without any arm attached to it. Her wide eyes were glued to the sight, even though she wanted nothing more than to tear her gaze away, finding that she couldn't, a queasy feeling settling in her stomach. This was like something straight out of a horror movie...

Another thought suddenly struck her: if that body inside had been controlling this whole system, then that meant...

The Doctor finished her thought out loud: "The Guardian is dead."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back when this chapter hadn't been written yet, I had offered a blind poll in the previous chapter for people to vote on one of three geometric shapes, without any further elaboration on what it was about - which was the decision over the degree of the attack on Lee by the bird like creature and his injury, with each shape having a different outcome on Lee's fate:
> 
>  **Rectangle** : Badly injured, he isn't able to go on and needs someone's help to be taken back, or has to at least stay back and wait for their return  
>  **Circle:** Minor injury, still able to go on or walk back by himself  
>  **Triangle:** Fatally injured, dies as a result
> 
> Lee was very lucky that most of the voters seemed to prefer circles... When the votes for the poll had been coming in very slowly during the first few days, it had actually been looking like we might end up with the triangle as a result. Phew.


	11. Chapter 11

_[Previously:]_

_Another thought suddenly struck her: if that body inside had been controlling this whole system, then that meant..._

_The Doctor finished the thought for her out loud. "The Guardian is dead."_

* * *

All Lydia could do was stare numbly at the Doctor, finally able to tear her eyes off the detached hand which she now knew to have once belonged to the Guardian.

"What...?"

Lee's voice pulled her out of her stupor. He had just caught up with them when the Doctor confirmed Lydia's suspicion.

"What do you mean, the Guardian is dead?"

His question was met with heavy silence.

"How can he be dead? He is _the Guardian_! He has been with us from the very beginning of Eden!" the villager exclaimed, confusion written all over his youthful face. It was then that he spotted the grey flesh floating in the tank, recoiling from the sight with a startled gasp.

His face was a mixture of disbelief, horror and confusion, and the sheer emotional turmoil visible on it made Lydia feel sorry for the young man. All his life he seemed to have been sheltered from even the very idea of violence, and most likely any other possibility than a peaceful death when a person reached the end of their natural lifespan, if one considered his earlier reaction to hearing of fatal illness. Being confronted with this situation - and especially the very sight of a severed hand - must have pulled the figurative rug right out from under his feet...

She wondered if he even was even capable of truly understanding the full implication of it, her heart going out for how overwhelming and confusing this realisation must be to him.

"I'm sorry, Lee. I really, really am," the Doctor told the villager in a soothing voice. "And I know this will seem cruel, but we don't have the time to grieve, there's too much at stake here," he continued in a more urgent tone, turning back to the control console of the device next to the tank. He went back to typing at the keyboard, with the occasional pointing of his screwdriver at one of the two screens.

Lydia went over to Lee while the Doctor was busy with the console and put a gentle hand on the younger man's arm. "All right there?"

The villager tried to give her a smile, but it came out more as a grimace. "I do not know?" he finally admitted. "I just–... What are we going to do now? I cannot believe he is no more?"

"I'm sorry..." She didn't know what else to say to that – she wasn't quite sure what to think of it all, to be honest, still having to process this new information herself.

Lee gave a heavy sigh and rubbed his forehead, his gaze still fixed on the tank. "How could this even happen?"

Now, that was a good question.

She was trying to think of a possible cause, when the Doctor's voice caught their attention again.

"Why is..." the Time Lord murmured, staring at the readings of his screwdriver with a deep frown. "Ohhh... _Oh!_ Now, that would explain why the TARDIS chose to..." He fell quiet again, a thought seeming to occur to him.

Their eyes met for a moment when he glanced at Lydia with an unreadable expression, before giving a sniff and pocketing the screwdriver in his trouser pocket. He then took off his coat and threw it over the machine, before rolling up the sleeve of his pinstriped jacket.

Lydia frowned slighty at his sudden change of demeanour, wondering what could have brought it on. And why he had decided not to share whatever had occured to him.

Her frown deepened when the Doctor unbuttoned the cuff of his blue shirt before rolling it up, too, and she wondered what he was up to when he went to the tank and climbed up a ladder on the side of it. The reason for it became obvious when he stuck his arm into the murky liquid, which made the redhead scrunch her nose up in disgust. She couldn't imagine anything less pleasant than sticking your arm into a liquid of questionable origin with severed parts of a dead body swimming inside it...

Actually, the more she thought about it, the queasier she began to feel.

She kept her attention on him, anyway, and watched with a disgusted face as the Doctor fished around in the tank for a few seconds before pulling out a cable.  
At least the liquid didn't seem to emit much of a smell, as far as she could tell from where she was standing – small relief there.

Both, Lydia and Lee, watched the Doctor curiously as he pulled a few more cables out of the tank - cursing quietly when he got the front of his shirt wet while fumbling with the end of one - before climbing the ladder back down with a handful of cables and returning to the device he had been checking earlier, where he wrapped the cables around a monitor so they wouldn't drop to the ground.

"There's no one to operate the system, so I'll have to set the most important functions - like the stabilisation of the magnetic field - to a constant safe and working level," he explained while he pulled his screwdriver back out of his pocket and pointed it at a panel in the console, undoing its cover. He then used the screwdriver on the ends of some of the cables, fumbling around with them, before beginning to attach one to the inner workings of the console panel with more sonicking involved. "That should ensure the system runs on itself without the need of an external operator – but it will also close it off from any control points, so the settings can't be changed again. Which means," he directed his attention to them for a moment, giving them a serious look, "I'll need a moment to concentrate entirely on what I'm doing here to make sure nothing goes wonky – all right?"

Lydia nodded in understanding and was about to leave him to it to work in peace as requested, when Lee stepped forward after a second.

"So we do not need the Guardian? Am I understanding correctly?"

The Doctor looked up once more from his work to face Lee with the screwdriver between his lips, since his hands were currently full with the ends of cables. He moved the cables to his left hand and took the screwdriver out of his mouth with the other, before unswering, "No, Lee, you don't need him. Well, I mean, with the way the system and its shielding have been set up to interfere with the planet itself, there _was_ a need for an operator before, yes – but that should have never been a requirement for life on this planet to begin with, this kind of system didn't have to be installed in the way it was."

Lee frowned, the sight a little unusal on his face. "Then why did he take care of us all this time if he did not have to?"

"To put it plainly; he pampered you. Whether it was for his own ego to rule as a god over a fake paradise, revered by the people he made so very dependent on him, or truly out of altruistic benevolence to make your life as carefree as possible is anyone's guess – but it wasn't necessary. What I am about to do will ensure you can continue going about your lives, just with a little less comfort than you might be used to and having to learn to be more self-reliant. It might be a little hard at first, but you will manage."

His words were followed by silence as Lee took them in, seeming to be deep in thought. Just as the Doctor was about to return to his work, the villager spoke again.

"What if I would go in there," the younger man said, pointing his finger at the tank. "Could I take care of everyone then? Like the Guardian did?"

Lydia looked at the villager in surprise. She hadn't thought ot that! Could it actually be a possibility to replace the Guardian by a different operator?

A serious expression fell over the Doctor's face. "You don't know anything about how the system works, and there simply wouldn't be enough time to teach you or anyone else." Seeing Lee still looking undeterred and about to protest, the Time Lord continued, "And even if there was; could you truly sacrifice your life for the care taking of everyone else? No, think about it first, Lee," he stopped the villager who was about to reply to that. "Think carefully. There'd be no more exploring ever again. No climbing trees, no having celebrations, and no learning new things or meeting new people. Could you truly give all that up to spend your life stuck in this tank, alone?"

After a very short staring contest, Lee averted his eyes, the protest seeming to die at the Doctor's words. He glanced at the tank, his internal conflict reflected on his face, and eventually his shoulders sagged in defeat.

"That's what I thought."

With that the Doctor simply went back to his work, and after a moment Lydia took Lee gently by his arm, leading him away from the Doctor to give the man some time to concentrate on his work without any further disturbance.

Silence fell over the room while they waited for the Doctor to finish what he was doing. Lydia's attempts at a quiet conversation with Lee fell short quickly when she couldn't think of anything appropriate to say to the defeated looking man; in the end they simply sat on the edge of some machine silently, each lost to their own thoughts.

* * *

Once the Doctor finished his work a while later, he showed Lydia the items they could gather mercury from, and as soon as they had gathered enough, the trio made to leave the cave again.

Lydia watched Lee's hunched posture while he was walking ahead of them, still feeling sorry for the villager. He had been so excited to meet the Guardian, just to find out that he was dead – and even worse, to see his torn remains. She just hoped he didn't beat himself up too badly over not wanting to sacrifice his freedom to take the Guardian's place. There were only few people who would be altruistic enough to do that, especially when it wasn't even strictly necessary. She had told him as much before, but he'd looked only remotely comforted by that, commenting that, "The Guardian had been".

"It's a pity he couldn't stay in there just temporally to fix the magnetic field, or something, until his place could be taken once they found a different, more prepared volunteer..." she found herself commenting to the Doctor, who was walking alongside her.  
An idea suddenly occured to her: "Like, they might have even taken turns in operating it, so no one would have to stay in there on their own for too long and everyone would still be taken care of and safe," she mused aloud, throwing a glance at the Time Lord next to her.

When he didn't show any reaction to it, she realised it was most likely wishful thinking.

"Yeah, probably too much of a 'happy ending' kind of idea to be real..." she sighed.

The Doctor gave a nondescript hum, and something in it, as well as the lack of any further comment, caught Lydia's attention, making her look up at his profile again. He kept his eyes fixed on the way in front of them, and she noticed there seemed to be a certain tightness in his jaw, which made her frown.

Something in that look seemed oddly familiar.

"I mean, you can't just unhook anyone from the system again, right?" she checked.

But the Time Lord did not answer, still presenting his profile to her, and Lydia stopped, wariness spreading within her.

"Doctor...?"

After a second the Doctor also came to a stop, and turned around with a closed off expression, while Lee continued on without them.

"It doesn't matter either way. It's shut off from outside intervention now."

A cold feeling settled in her stomach. "But... but maybe they really could have worked a way out, like I said!"

"The chances of them working out a balanced way by switching operators would have been slight at best in the long term. And apart from that, it's better that they don't," he replied curtly.

Lydia stared at him, aghast. So he had kept that information to himself on purpose, after scaring Lee off the idea to get in? Playing on his guilt like that?  
But _why_?

"This kind of technology should not be here and in this era in the first place," the Doctor explained, as if having heard her silent question; perhaps it had been reflected in her eyes.  
"And the longer these people continue on like this and get used to this way of living, the less they'll be able to look out for themeselves once something will happen to the system and their concept of the Guardian again," he continued. "At least now there're still people like Dares around, who still have an inkling of what the world outside their little bubble is like and what to expect once they might have to face it. Which they will - maybe sooner, maybe later - but the day will likely come. And it's better they're at least somewhat prepared for it, which now they still have a chance to be."

He let his words sink in, before adding in a darker voice, "And I _really_ don't like the thought of sacrificing individuals to wither their life away in this lonely glass prison, just for the sake of everyone else's comfort. They can just as well live on with a little self-responsibility with the system's basics fixed at a safe level as they're now."

Lydia didn't know how to react, feeling torn between his deliberate manipulation of Lee earlier and the logical element of truth behind the Doctor's motivation.

"Yeah, but... I mean, I see where you're coming from; but couldn't you simply explain that to Lee and the others, instead of scaring him off the idea and basically lying to him? Instead of _manipulating_ him like that?" she accused. "I'm sure if you just presented the facts to them and properly explained–"

"Lydia, there wasn't _time_ for that," he cut her short testily. "You have witnessed yourself just how stubborn and unwilling the people here are about accepting any new, foreign concepts; they most likely wouldn't have even truly listend to anything I say – they certainly didn't do that when I tried before, never mind trying explaining to them the reason why–"

The Doctor stopped himself abruptly and sighed heavily through his nose. "Look, it doesn't matter now anyway, it's already done."

The tense silence following their exchange was interrupted by Lee's distant voice asking what was taking them so long. The Doctor turned to catch up with the villager, and Lydia followed shortly after him, a little stunned with what had just occurred.

She hadn't meant to start a confrontation. The Doctor had averted the danger and saved the people on this planet after all, hadn't he?  
She wasn't sure if she was being fair by judging the method of his help, but his making such an important decision for someone else and manipulating them like that didn't sit right with her.

* * *

The hike back to the village was silent for the most part, and Lydia couldn't help feeling like the Doctor was being more aloof again ever since they had left the Guardian's cave.

The results of their little adventure became visible when dusk approached; the colourful lights in the sky had faded back into just a faint reminder of their former vibrancy, proving that the magnetic field was strengthened and stabilised again.

Still, she found herself musing silently that it felt rather anticlimactic.

By the time they arrived back at the village the next day, every part of her body seemed to ache from exhaustion – which seemed not to apply to the Doctor, who went to get the TARDIS straight after a brief talk to Dares, Iwin and Rona, sending Lee off to see their healer about his shoulder.  
He told Lydia to stay back and wait for him, pointing out that she was way too exhausted to consider another hike, and suggested that she should get some proper rest.

The redhead decided to follow his advice, feeling too exhausted to be around the villagers while they discussed what the Doctor had told them, and after checking with Lee again if he was all right, she asked Rona where she could have a wash, before falling into the bed she had previously occupied like a dead stone.

* * *

Lydia didn't know how long she had slept, but when she woke up it was dark outside. Once she had dressed (she'd sniffed at her hoodie and wrinkled her nose; she definitely needed a change of fresh clothes soon), she made her way carefully downstairs, her body still sore, hoping it wasn't in the middle of the night. Her phone's battery was nearly dead by this point, and it wasn't like the time it showed would help her out anyway, so she'd turned it off before going to sleep.

Arriving at the common room, she was relieved to see it lit up and with Iwin and his family having dinner at the large table.

"Hello dear," Rona greeted her. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you," the younger woman smiled in reply. She took a look around the room. "Has the Doctor still not returned?"

"No, we have not heard of him since he left."

The redhead frowned slightly at that; what took him so long? An unpleasant thought crossed her mind; he wouldn't have just left without her... would he? Well, yeah, he might not have any obligations towards her, but surely he wouldn't just leave her stranded on some foreign planet?  
The logical part of her brain kicked in then and reminded her that he still had to fix the TARDIS first, and time machine or not, that would surely take a while. Plus he was probably giving her time to rest, as he had suggested.

She couldn't stop some worry spreading through her at the previous idea, though.

"Would you like to join us?"

Lydia blinked, pulled out of her brooding by Iwin's voice. "Oh, uhm... Yes, actually, if that's all right?"

"Of course it is," the man smiled kindly.

* * *

It was nearly two hours after dinner, Rona's and Iwin's daughters having left for their rooms by then, when Lydia heard the familiar-yet-slightly-different wheezing, groaning sound outside the building, making her breath a sigh of relief.  
Several moments later the door opened, revealing the Doctor (wearing a different shirt, Lydia noted) who was looking more relaxed than when she had last seen him.

"Hello," he greeted the remaining group still seated around the table and nursing beverages as he approached them. "Someone called for a taxi?"

"Guess that would be me," Lydia smiled, feeling like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders with relief, while at the same time feeling silly for having worried.

The couple of villagers looked a little confused about what the exchange was about, but once Lydia got up from the table and grabbed her messenger bag, understanding seemed to dawn on them.

"You are leaving then?" Iwin checked, also getting up.

"Yep; other places to see, civilisations to explore," the Time Lord replied pleasantly, holding out his hand for Iwin to shake. "Thank you for your hospitality, Iwin, Rona," he added before shaking the latter's hand as well.

"No, thank _you_ , Doctor."

"Don't mention it. Just make sure to talk some sense into Dares and remember what I told you, would you?"

"I will try my best," Iwin accepted.

Lydia also said her goodbyes, pleasantly surprised when Rona hugged her, and returned the gesture before the group made to leave the building together. The TARDIS with her lit-up windows was a surprisingly welcome sight to her, especially after worrying that she might have been left behind on this foreign planet.

"You are leaving already?"

Lydia turned towards the source of the voice and saw Lee approaching them, coming from the direction of the neighbouring house.

"Yeah."

He came to a stop in front of her, letting his eyes rest on her face for a moment before directing them at the TARDIS. "Is this another Working of Old then?"

"Uhm, sorta, I guess. It's a mean of travel, in a way." She glanced at the Doctor to check if it was all right of her to explain, but he didn't show any reaction.

"Oh."

Silence began to spread, making Lydia avert her eyes and fiddle nervously with the edge of her messenger bag, starting to feel awkward with the way the villager kept looking at her.

"Are you going to visit again some day?" he finally asked.

She looked up at that and her expression seemed to give her answer away, because Lee's face fell before she'd even opened her mouth.

"I don't think it's very likely... Sorry," she smiled sadly.

Lee had been rather fun to be around, and often helped her in not becoming too lost in her broodings with his easy-going and excited nature. She did feel a little sad to say goodbye to him.

Acting on an impulse, the redhead stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. "I'm glad to have met you. Try not to get into too much mischief, yeah?"

He hugged her back, and when they parted again she was relieved to see the boyish smile back on his previously disappointed face. "Not making any promises."

She returned his smile, before adding, "And remember what I said. Most people would have done the same."

He sobered again at that, but nodded. "I will do my best."

The Doctor shook hands with Lee as well after that, exchanging goodbyes, and with that the two off-worlder went into the TARDIS. Lydia gave the villagers outside a final wave before closing the door behind her.

"Well, off we go then!"

Turning around, she saw the Doctor was already busy with the console. A lurch soon followed, signaling that the TARDIS was in flight (well, if one could call it 'flight') and making her grab onto the railing. She found it weird that the sight of the Doctor handling the console felt almost comfortingly familar in some bizarre way, after the past few surreal days she'd had...

As she made her way up the grating towards him, the Doctor shifted a lever into place and then turned to face her, reaching into his trouser pocket.

"Hold out your hand," the Time Lord requested.

Curiously, she did as he asked and waited until he pulled out a blister pack after a few seconds of rummaging, followed by pushing a lime green pill out into her waiting palm.

"What is that?"

"Anti-radiation pill."

It took a moment for realisation to hit, and when it did, she felt the colour drain from her face.

"Were we actually already exposed to the radiation? Does that mean I'm contaminated?!" she squeaked, her pulse quickening.

"No, no, no, it's all right, don't worry!" he quickly assured her, raising his hands in a placating manner. "The leftover shield residue should've still provided sufficient protection while we were there, this is mainly just to calm my mind, really. A very 'just in case' measure."

His words succeeded only partially in calming her. It took him handing her a water bottle that had been lying on the jump seat and her swallowing the pill with the drink to begin relaxing again. She still had an uneasy feeling about the possibility of some contamination, though.

Something else worried her about it, too: "What about the people on Eden? Shouldn't you give them something just in case, too?"

"With their advanced genetics they aren't in quite the same danger to low doses of radiation as you'd be. And I told you; it's really just in case – you probably don't truly need it yourself, but better be safe than sorry, right?"

Lydia decided to take his word for it; what else could she do, really?

Going over to the jump seat to put the bottle back down, she spotted a big suitcase resting on the grating next to it. She frowned; what would the Doctor need a suitcase for, when his TARDIS was basically his portable home with its own wardrobe room?

"What's your hometown?"

"Err, Cologne?" she answered automatically while turning to face him, the sudden question taking her by surprise. "Why are you asking?"

The Time Lord didn't answer, simply typed something into the keyboard under the control screen for a moment instead, before turning a few switches on the console and pulling the lever from before, making the TARDIS lurch into movement again together with the tubes in the time rotor.

Lydia watched him in confusion, holding on to the back rest of the jump seat for balance.

Once they seemed to have landed, he checked the screen again before reaching into a compartment under the console and pulling out a thin folder, which he handed to her.

"Take good care of this; best put it into your bag right away so nothing falls out."

She did as he instructed and put the folder away, wondering what this was all about. "What's inside it?"

"Everything you need to start a new life in this universe."

Every thought process came to a stop at his reply.

Lydia blinked numbly at him. "What...?" she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Well, you know; some documents, ID, bank card – that sort of stuff humans in the twentyfirst century place importance on. The TARDIS created some basic background for you to fit into the time you should be used to, and opened a bank account with some financial basis that should get you trough the first few months until you've got the hang of things."

She felt her stomach drop, her mind further blanking out at this revelation.

Right. He had been about to drop her off and get her 'settled', before the TARDIS had acted up and taken them to Eden, hadn't he...? Told her he intended to travel alone.  
And now that she knew where in his timeline they were, she knew he'd really meant it. After all the heartbreak from losing Donna and everyone leaving him, he'd closed himself off from any further potential hurt.

Which meant traveling alone, without the possibility of losing someone close to him again.

And it wasn't like Lydia was even close to him to begin with. No obligations, and all that. To him she was just a random stranger who had happened to end up here by accident, another problem to solve and then to move on from.

She had almost forgotten about that with everything going on back on Eden.

"Can't have you end up starving under some bridge, now can we?" he continued, oblivious to her shocked silence (or at least pretending to be). "Which is why I've taken the liberty to rent a flat for you in Cologne. Not with a view on the _Dom_ , mind, but fully furnished in exchange. Let's take a look at it, shall we?"

He grabbed the suitcase without waiting for a reply and wheeled it after him towards the doors, and it then hit Lydia that the suitcase was for her; most likely containing clothing and other necessities, probably also courtesy of the TARDIS.

Her legs started moving of their own accord, mechanically following the Doctor outside while her mind was still trying to process the situation she was finding herself in. The TARDIS had been parked right outside a middle-sized flat complex and as she looked up at the building, a single raindrop fell on her forehead, making her blink.  
Seemed like it was about to start raining, she absentmindedly noted looking at the grey sky.

"There we go, just as arranged. Molto bene!"

She directed her attention back to the Doctor, who was crouched in front a flowerpot that he was tipping back. He reached his hand under the pot and pulled out a set of keys which he presented to her with a pleased smirk, before moving to the front door where the suitcase was waiting and unlocking it, holding the door open for her.

Being presented without much of an alternative, Lydia followed the man in, her legs numbly carrying her up a few flights of stairs until she found the Doctor unlocking another door. He disappeared into the flat behind it, taking the suitcase with him, and Lydia took a steadying breath before following him in.

A brief tour of the small flat followed, with a running commentary by the Time Lord and Lydia barely taking much of the few rooms in, other than to notice that they looked furnished but not really lived-in, the way hotel rooms did. Impersonal and unfamiliar.

She felt strangely detached throughout the tour, a bit like in a dream.

Eventually they came to a stop in the small hallway, and the Doctor handed her the keys. Their weight in her hand caused the weight of the situation to slowly sink in, and her thoughts began to run in circles.

This was really happening.

He was going to leave her now, wasn't he? After everything that had happened in the past few days, her little adventure with him was coming to an end – an unkown future awaiting.  
Well, unknown when it came to her, at least; she had a good idea on at last some of the things that were awaiting the Doctor...

That stray thought made her remember the nightmare she'd had during their hike to the cave, and thinking of the Doctor's fate made her stomach churn.  
He was going to lose his way and end up bitter and broken, and the knowledge was weighing down heavily on her.

_'Unless...'_

Unless she really did warn him?

Her pulse quickened as she reconsidered the idea.

Maybe she could try to at least make herself useful before she'd fade into becoming another faceless solved problem?

The Doctor was turning to reach for the handle of the front door, and Lydia found herself calling out his name, unable to stop herself as a sudden sense of urgency overcame her.

This might be her last and only chance to do something.

When the Doctor turned his head to face her, she gathered her courage and continued, "When was the last time you were on Mars?"

"What?" The Doctor frowned, pausing in the midst of opening the door.

"Just..." She sighed heavily, running her fingers through her long hair in a nervous gesture. That had been a stupid way to go about it.  
"Listen; the next time you end up on Mars, check the _exact_ date before you decide to go out and do some exploring," she quickly told him before the boldness left her again, her heart beating fast in her chest at the realisation of what she was doing.

She didn't know if she was doing the right thing, but she couldn't help herself from at least giving him a warning if this was the very last chance for her to try and do _something_. Anything helpful at all.  
Maybe that way he might at least not lose his way so badly and turn even more bitter after going too far, before he–...  
Well, for the remaining time in this incarnation.

The Doctor watched her for a moment with an unreadable look, before giving a sniff and pulling the door further open. "Right, well. I'll be off then. Hope you'll be able to get accustomed to your new life soon; make the best of it," he advised her.

Lydia couldn't think of anything to say to that, her mind a mess of wild running thoughts.

"If I find out anything new about the rift signature that brought you here, I'll pop in. Promise," he tried to reassure her with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Needless to say, it didn't work. After all, he had been the one to hint at the chances of finding a way back home being almost non-existent before.

"I'm afraid this is all I can do for you at this point... But I'm sure you will manage; you did quite well on Eden," he told her, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Take care, Lydia. It was a pleasure to meet and save a planet with you."

She couldn't quite bring herself to return his small smile.

With that he left, the door closing behind him, and the tiny rush of adrenaline from warning him left her together with his presence. After a few seconds of just staring at the wooden door, Lydia numbly went to the nearest window in the kitchen and watched the last person that was - in some twisted way - familiar to her, step out of her life and into a blue Police Box.

It was only then that she felt a wave of self-reproach making its way to the forefront of her thinking, reproaching her for being so overwhelmed with the sudden reality of her situation, that she hadn't even spoken up for herself, not even asked to–...  
Well. To what, actually? The Doctor didn't want anyone to travel with him. She wasn't even sure she'd be any companion material in the first place, it wasn't like she'd done anything outstanding on Eden, or anything.

What other option would've been left, other than making sure she found a place to live at in this world...?  
It turned out there wasn't some miracle solution to finding a way back home, after all.

She knew she should probably be grateful for the help, but… In some way, she couldn't help feeling like she was being abandoned. He hadn't even asked her what she wanted, not checked what she thought about all this.  
Just decided for himself.

It really did make her feel like just another faceless problem that has been solved to him.

Hugging herself, the young woman watched the TARDIS dematerialise with a growing sense of abandonment. The blue box faded into nothing, leaving her standing in the oppressive silence of the unfamiliar flat that was supposed to be her new home, and with everything her life now consisted of reduced to fit into a folder inside the bag hanging down from her shoulder.

As she continued staring out of the window, the rain increased, washing away the dry spot on the pavement where the TARDIS had stood, removing any traces of it ever having been there.

And as she felt a tear rolling down her cheek (from the strain of barely blinking, she weakly tried telling herself), a single thought penetrated the haze Lydia's mind had fallen into, striking her right to the core:

Had she possibly just killed the two Bowie Base One crew members that the Doctor had been able to save from certain death in _The Waters of Mars_ , by warning him to check the date before exploring...?


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this chapter, there's just one more finished left to add right now, with chapter 14 currently still in the making. So updating might take quite a while after that.
> 
> I have to admit the following two chapters are quite packed with an information and revelation dump, just to give you a little heads-up about a lack of action.  
> (This chapter had been giving me a lot of trouble, having me write 5 different versions with varying degrees of confrontation, until finally felt okay enough with this one... Hope it won't disappoint.)

_"Have a nice weekend!"_

_"Thanks, you too!"_ she replied, adjusting the strap of her messenger bag across her shoulder. _"And thanks again for inviting me to come along."_

_"Don't mention it. Maybe join us again next time?"_

She considered the offer for a moment, feeling warmed by the invitation, and nodded.

_"I think I just might."_

_"Great! See you Monday then."_

Lydia simply smiled in reply, giving a little wave at the faces that were slowly becoming familiar sitting around the table, before turning to leave the pub they'd found themselves in.  
Outside the building her own face was met with the chilly night air, making her wrap her thin scarf tighter around her neck, before turning towards her left and walking in the direction of the nearby central station. The streets of Cologne's historic district with its many pubs were quite busy with it being a Friday night, and she shook her head in amusement at a group of drunk football fans bawling out the chorus of some Colognian song. It seemed like some things simply didn't change, no matter what world.

The thought caused the redhead to slow down her pace, realising in surprise that it was the first time a comparison to her home world had entered her mind at all that day. She had been so wrapped up in the busy shift at her new job, and when one of her co-workers who she got along well with had asked her if she wanted to join them at their local afterwards, the atmosphere had been so light and friendly that Lydia had felt included and part of something for the first time in a long while, letting herself be fully drawn into the conversations and actually having a good time.

For a few blissful hours she had completely forgotten that she did not really belong here.

The realisation raised mixed feelings in the young woman, but amongst them was one she had not felt ever since watching a blue Police Box vanish outside her window on a rainy afternoon, and not been sure she'd ever truly feel again; hopeful optimism.

Maybe things would eventually work out, after all? Maybe she really could manage to built a new life for herself in this universe and find some actual happiness again? She was alive after all, wasn't she – no point in wasting that.

Or at least that's what she's kept telling herself for the past few weeks to keep herself going.

But for once, the words didn't feel quite as hollow anymore. For the first time she actually felt some confidence in the idea that, as long as she was alive, there was always a chance for change and things to take a turn for the better.

Lydia felt a small smile tug at her lips at those thoughts as she climbed up the steps to what here was the back side of the  _Domplatte_ – a wide, open pedestrian area around the huge Cologne Cathedral. She still felt a little disoriented whenever she crossed it in direction of the central station, since it was placed on a different side of the cathedral than it was in her home version of the city.

The first time she'd caught sight of the _Domplatte_ on the wrong side after leaving the station building - just when she'd gathered the courage to leave the flat for more than just a quick visit to the supermarket and truly start facing her new situation - she had come to a dead stop, causing another person to run into her back before shoving past her with a rude comment. She'd fled right back into the station after a few seconds of stunned staring, unable to deal with the obvious reminder of what had been supposed to be familiar and safe now being completely foreign to her, after all.  
(There'd also been another time where she'd gotten a bit lost while trying to take a familiar shortcut, when one of the alleys she usually took didn't exist. Her mind had blanked out for a moment at the sight of the unexpected wall she'd found herself in front of after turning a corner. Talk about obvious reminders...)

Once she arrived at the station, the redhead went to the underground and was lucky to catch a train home after just a minute of waiting. Taking a window seat, she watched the lights of the station slowly pass by, as her thoughts drifted back to the first few weeks after she'd been abandoned in this situation on her own.

At the beginning she'd been torn between coming to accept the situation, and foolishly waiting for the Doctor to return any minute with a way back home. Once realisation that he had truly left and this was happening to her had hit, Lydia had hit a low like never before in her life. For the following three weeks she'd been a right mess, basically mourning everyone she'd ever held dear. As she was likely never going to see or talk to them again, they could just as well be dead to her – or she to them, whichever way sounded more accurate.  
That had been a realisation that had pulled the rug out from under her feet.

Her existence had been reduced to wallowing in self-pity, alternating with being angry - at herself for touching the light, with the Doctor for just abandoning her, with fate for putting her through this - as she'd found her life to have been exchanged for the existence as a nobody with no place and past in this world.

And what had made it worse, was that she didn't even have a hand to hold on to and draw strength and courage from, knowing that at least she wasn't alone in this unfathomable situation.

Because she _was_.

Lydia had never before felt as utterly alone in the world as during that time. Which had led to some rash decisions that really hadn't helped her situation. (She winced as the image of a familiar face shouting in completely unfamiliar aggression at her came up, and quickly shoved it to the back of her mind, refusing to taint the memory of _her_ Wolfgang's face with _that_.)

And as if that hadn't already been bad enough, she'd also been haunted by the uncertainty of her parting words to the Doctor, fretting about the possibility of her warning having potentially cost two lives that would've otherwise been saved. She'd probably never know now.

No, she really didn't like thinking back to those first few weeks.

After a while she'd come to accept that she couldn't change anything about any of it, though, and decided she might as well try to move on and face her new life, for better or worse.  
Moping around wasn't going to help her deal with it, after all.

She'd eventually grown tired of confining herself within the walls of the tiny flat, and started reacquainting herself with this universe's version of the city. It then had dawned on her that she needed to consider some kind of plan on how to go on from there, since the money the Doctor had left her with wouldn't last forever.

That's how she'd come to apply at a temp agency when she'd seen an ad in a newspaper on the spur of a moment. Getting a temp job, while generally not being very favourable, had at least been pretty easy to achieve back in her version of Germany, so she'd thought it might be worth a shot. After a call, she'd been quickly invited for an interview, putting the documents the TARDIS had provided her with to the test, and had found herself with a new (if rather basic) job soon after.

Getting back to the routine of doing something productive and having a distraction to keep her mind off the constant brooding, as well as being amongst people and having some kind of social life again, had done a world of good to her.

With each new day, Lydia woke up feeling less and less burdened by everything. It was still incredibly painful and hard to control her emotions during some moments, she still missed so much from her old world, but on the whole, life didn't look quite so bleak and hopeless anymore.

It was starting to look like she could actually endure the new situation.

Compared to the beginning, Lydia realised she'd made quite some significant progress in regards to her acceptance of it all.  
It was a realisation that helped her wear her head just that tad bit higher than before as she stepped out of the train, and it was nice to feel some confidence in herself returning.

She could do this.

* * *

The walk from the underground station to her flat took only several minutes, but Lydia still couldn't get fast enough to the warmth awaiting her inside, despite the slight buzz she felt from the few drinks she'd had in the pub. Autumn was slowly coming to an end, and her jacket was already feeling a bit too light for the cool evening temperatures. She'd have to go shopping for winter clothing soon, since the few clothes she'd been left with weren't really appropriate for the season.

Just as she'd inserted the key into the frontdoor and was about to turn it, she heard the squeaking sound of another, wooden door opening from around the corner of the building, and froze.

There was no other door on the side of the house, just a pathway that led to the garages. And the sound had been familiar...

Her heartrate picked up when she placed the memory of the sound and _how_ it was familiar. It couldn't be, could it...?

When the sound of steps nearing reached her ears, she turned her head expactantly to face the corner of the building, still frozen to the spot with her hand resting on the key inside the lock, pulse further quickening. It couldn't be. It just couldn't. She must've mistaken the sound, maybe it had just come from the building next to her flat complex–

Her thoughts were cut short when the person whose steps had been approaching came into view around the corner, and her breath caught in her throat as she took in the wild brown hair and pinstriped blue suit in the faint light from the automatic lamp on the wall above her head.

The Doctor came to a stop a few feet away from her, hands resting inside the pockets of his trousers, and for a moment both of them just looked at each other.

"Hello," he finally broke the silence.

Lydia could only stare at him, her brain having trouble processing the entirely unexpected situation she was finding herself in. (The remaining slight buzz from the alcohol didn't help matters, either.)

"Can we talk?" he asked with raised brows and a tilt of his head towards the garages after several more seconds of silent staring.

Dumbfounded, the redhead simply nodded before pulling her key out of the lock, her legs moving to follow the Time Lord's tall frame around the corner on auto pilot. Her overwhelmed mind was having trouble concentrating on a clear line of thought as her gaze landed on the TARDIS standing parked opposite the wall of the flat complex. A sight she had not expected to ever see again.

The Doctor opened the door and went in, leaving it open to her in a clear invitation. Hesitating for a moment, Lydia took a deep breath to gather her wits, before following him into the ship. Closing the door behind her in an automatic reflex, she walked a few steps up the ramp towards the console where the Doctor was fiddling with the control screen, before coming to an uncertain stop, not knowing what to expect.

"Feel free to take a seat," the man offered without taking his eyes off the screen, apparently aware of her hesitation without even looking.

Deciding to follow his lead for now, she went up to the console and sat hesitantly on the edge of the worn jump seat, eyes roaming over the room. Everything looked just like she remembered it, she absentmindedly noted. Her eyes then came to rest on the Doctor's back in front of her, and she finally gathered her thoughts to speak.

"You wanted to talk?"

With that he tapped the screen one more time before turning around and leaning back against the egde of the console, hands returning into his trouser pockets and dark eyes coming to rest on her.

"I did."

The silence following his reply felt a little awkward. Lydia didn't want to get any hopes up as she had no idea what this was about, so she nervously decided to let him lead the conversation. Better not make any assumptions that might just end up disappointing her.

"First of all, how have you been? Settled in all right?"

For several seconds she could just stare at him in response, feeling incredulous and not just a little miffed at the way he had asked this; like a random icebreaker to start a conversation. As if leaving her behind in her situation had been no big deal – merely a small talk topic, which might just as well have been about the weather.

"You're seriously asking me that, _now_?"

His brow furrowed slightly at the sharp tone in her voice.

"Bit rich, after basically abandoning me to fend for myself in a foreign world," she found herself biting out, tongue likely loosened a bit by the alcohol but not finding it in herself to care about it right now, "Without even checking with me if I felt like I could do it all on my own!" Her voice cracked with emotion on the last words, surprising herself with the resurfacing feelings now that she was actually confronting him about it after those past seven weeks.

The Doctor's face mirrored her frown now. "I told you, making sure you had a place to stay at was the best I could do then."

Lydia felt burried anger stirring again at the fact that he'd decided over her fate right over her head – and apparently didn't even think anything of it. "But you could have at least consulted me on how I felt about that, instead of just deciding for yourself what's supposedly 'best' for me!"

"Would it have changed anything about the situation?"

That question threw her off her growing tirade. "What?"

"It still would've led to you having to come to terms with being stuck here, no matter how you felt about it." His face softened, belying the harsh truth he had just forced upon her. "And I'm sorry you had to deal with that, I really am, but there was nothing else that could have been done about it. There had been no way for me to trace a way back. All I could do then was to make sure you were left with enough to start building a new life here."

The redhead felt frustrated tears prickling in her eyes with bottled up emotions brought to the surface again, and dropped her gaze. Apparently she wasn't quite over it all just yet. And as hard as it was to admit, he had a point. She just wished she had an appropriate target to take the frustrations out on.  
So much about the positivity she'd felt earlier.

The Doctor picked his speech up again after a beat of silence. "You know, now that you brought it up, I guess - in hindsight - I could have left you with someone I used to travel with who'd understand your situation a little, made sure you weren't quite as alone in this..."

Lydia looked up at that in surprise, feeling some anger flaring again. That's right, he _could_ have! But instead he'd just thrown her in at the deep end.

"But to be honest, I'm not sure how _I_ would have felt about that, even if it had occured to me."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, with you having personal information about me and my companions from unknown sources, and a frankly rather far-fetched story for it, I wasn't quite sure what to make of you."

She felt her mouth fall open slightly at that. So all that time on Eden he hadn't really believed her story?

"And then I happened to end up on Mars."

Lydia felt her heartrate pick up again. Of all the things, she certainly hadn't expected him to show up again after Mars...  
Though then again, maybe she really _should_ have after what she'd done on their parting.

When she didn't say anything to that, the Doctor continued, "Which proved that you truly do seem to have some kind of - rather detailed - foreknowledge about me, considering you specifically mentioned the date to me. Care to explain how you acquired that?"

Her unease increased. Just what _had_ he been thinking of her? What was she supposed to say when she'd already told him the truth?

"I don't know what–... I mean, I already told you?"

"So you're still sticking to the story of the TV show?" he checked.

She blinked. "I– yeah, of course! It was the truth."

After all the weird stuff he must have seen in his considerbale lifetime of travelling the universe, surely this couldn't be the least believable thing? What had he possibly been thinking instead?

The Doctor held her gaze, before declaring, "All right then. At this point I suppose I'll just have to take your word on that."

He was about to continue speaking when Lydia interrupted him, something in his declaration making her pause. "Wait, what do you mean, 'at this point'?"

He continued holding her gaze, seeming to weigh his words, before admitting, "I checked if you weren't in contact with some obscure time-travel related organisation after all – someone with the likelihood of some kind of database on me. Might've even been trying to use you without you being aware of it. Wouldn't be the first time that people tried to get their hands on the last remaining TARDIS and Time Lord technology."

 _'What the,_ what _?!'_

Dozens of thoughts and questions raced through her mind at that, but the only thing that tumbled out of her mouth was a "How?"

"What?"

"How did you possibly check that?" she couldn't help but wonder as he'd never returned after dropping her off before now, her head reeling with the implications of what he'd just shared with her.

One of the Doctor's hands went from his pocket to his neck, where he began to rub it as a somewhat sheepish expression fell over his face. "I might've spiked the water you washed down the anti-radiation pill with after Eden with a spatio-temporal nanite-tracker that would tell me if you made any unusal jumps in either direction, allowing me to keep tabs on you..."

Her mouth fell open into an incredulous gape, mind going blank for a few seconds with the bomb he had just dropped on her.

Seeing her incredulous expression, the Doctor was quick to raise both of his hands in a placating gesture. "I know it was wrong to invade your privacy in such a way, and I do apologise – but I really wasn't sure what to make of you, and whether or not there might be reason to make sure none of my Earthbound associates were put into any kind of danger."

"You _stalked_ me?!"

He winced. "I wouldn't call it _stalking_ –"

"Well, _I_ would!"

She was feeling the anger quickly returning at the latest revelation. He'd been acting over her head – _again_. Spiked her drink without her knowledge, for god's sake! Who knows what that pill had been really for...

The Doctor sighed, which for some reason annoyed her even more.

"Look, I was just checking to see if you were in contact with anyone and jumping around time or space, for a limited period of time – no intention on personal stalking whatsoever. Promise."

"Still doesn't change the fact that you invaded my privacy and violated my trust by spiking my drink," she shot back hotly.

"I know, and I apologise. Not one of my best moments, I'll admit..."

Lydia shook her head and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, clenching her jaw. She really had no words for it at the moment. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she decided to move the conversation on for the time being in an attempt to keep her cool.

"So you decided to keep tabs on me, because you thought I might be in league with people who want to get their hands on Time Lord technology?" she summarised in a flat voice.

"Well, sort of. As I said, there might've also been the possibility of you being unwittingly involved. Then you went and warned me about the date on Mars, apparently knowing I'd be there and... make a mistake. Something that can not be general knowledge as history is rewritten, becoming fact that overwrote what had been before – and thus something that only someone whose timeline had been personally involved with the change should be even aware of. And I seriously doubt a future version of me would be the one to share this particular occurrence with you."

He let that sink in for a moment, successfully distracting her from her anger for the moment.

"Which just further proved that your knowlegde about me is very personal... But you are not a future companion, are you?"

Lydia shook her head with slight surprise at the suggestion. "No."

"Okay. Didn't really think you were, just to be sure..." he mumbled in reply. "Well, then my point stands; I'll just have to take your word on knowing that from a TV show about me somewhere."

They fell silent for a while after that, each lost to their own thoughts, with that information stalling Lydia's anger somewhat.  
The young woman finally gathered her courage to ask something that had been deeply troubling her ever since they had parted.

"About Mars..." She tried not to lose her nerve at the way the Doctor's eyes shot up at that with a piercing look. "Did you, uhm... Did my warning not keep you away then?"

He didn't answer immediately, pinning her to the seat with that piercing look, before finally dropping it and letting out a deep breath.

"I only remembered it once I was already taken to the base," he answered, face carefully neutral.

"Oh." She fiddled with the edge of her messenger bag, not sure if it was wise to push it but needing to know. "Did the crew members... Were there survivors?" she asked, holding her breath.

When there was no answer with the seconds stretching, she was about to give up expecting one just when the Time Lord spoke again, still not meeting her eyes.

"There were some."

Lydia couldn't help sighing in relief, her eyes falling shut, feeling like a weight had been lifted of her shoulders. So her rash decision had not cost those two lives then... At the cost of the Doctor's peace of mind.

Damn it, she was supposed to be angry with him, not feel sorry.

His next words pulled her out of her musings.

"Right. So apparently you had this foreknowledge from that show – meaning it's further ahead than my current, personal timeline?"

Lydia looked up in surprise, wondering where he was going with this. "Why do you want to know that?"

"I'll assume that means 'yes' then. There's a good reason why a Time Lord's personal future timeline - and that of those closely intertwined with it - is a blind spot to them – you never know what result might come out from tinkering with it. It could cause nasty paradoxes of unknown extent." His eyes bore into hers, making sure his point was coming across. "Don't ever do something like that again."

Lydia was slightly taken aback by the sudden sharp tone in his voice.

"Can I trust you not to make any more use of your foreknowledge about me in any way?"

"I–... yeah. Sorry."

The way his eyes were still boring intensely into hers despite her answer was beginning to make her feel uneasy, and she had a hard time trying not to look away. How had the mood changed so quickly?

"Good," he finally commented, relaxing his posture again and releasing her from his piercing stare. "Well, I suppose I should get to what I'm here about then..."

Lydia blinked, realising the confirmation of her story had apparently not been the only reason he'd come to talk about. But what else might there be?

His answer to her silent question nearly had her choking on her own spit:

"I've picked up the analysis of the data collected at the breach again, letting it constanstly run in the background, and surprisingly the TARDIS picked up a very faint live blip of the rift signature you arrived with. If you agree to let her lock onto that energy signature that should also be saturated into your cells, we might be able to trace it."

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another revelation dump as previously warned about...  
> I admit this chapter ran away with me and kind of did its own thing for the most part. I kept re-reading it, adding things then removing them again as it kept getting longer and longer, tweaking here and there, and then here again... Eventually I wasn't even sure how I felt about it anymore, but didn't want to mess around with it any more, so eh. I just hope the order of events and the reactions are still somewhat coherent.

_[Previously:]_

_"I've picked up the analysis of the data collected at the breach again, let it run in the background, and surprisingly the TARDIS picked up a very faint live blip of the rift signature you arrived with. If you agree to let her lock onto that energy signature that should be saturated into your cells, we might be able to trace it."_

* * *

Lydia actually had to balance herself by pressing a palm into the worn seat cushion next to her hip, feeling a little lightheaded with the revelation that had just been dropped on her.

"And by tracing it, you mean...?" she asked softly after a moment of taking it in, barely daring to hope.

"We might be able to find the origin of the breach."

That momentarily distracted her from the blossoming hope.

"Wait, I thought it had been pretty clear where it originated...?"

"Oh, no, sorry, I don't mean the location of where the breach opened - that, of course, is clear - I'm talking about the device or whatever it was that _caused_ it," the Doctor clarified.

Lydia frowned in confusion, not really understanding what the Time Lord was on about. "How can you even be sure there _was_ a device? I mean, there really wasn't anything out of the oridnary around as far as I remember..."

The Doctor acknowledged her comment with a hum. "You really don't remember anything?"

Lydia shook her head.

"Well, there still must have been something at use, though, because there is simply no other way you'd be here now," he claimed. "Now, with space-time rifts _within_ one single universe it's a different matter. But had you actually entered the Void separating different universes without any kind of protection, you would've been torn into your very atoms, scattered formlessly across it with no means of putting them back together – never mind leaving the Void again with all of them back in one piece through the same 'exit'. Or at least, that's what's hypothetically assumed to most likely happen."

The redhead stared at him in silent horror, feeling an unvoluntary shiver running down her spine. To think what her thoughtless touching of the light might've resulted in...

The Doctor let his eyes rest on her for several seconds, looking to be in thought, before placing his hand back into the pocket of his trousers and crossing his right foot in front of the left as he leant against the console, his casual posture standing in contrast to the serious look on his face.

"Well, let's try this then," he seemed to think out loud. "Since keeping my speculations to myself didn't seem to go down very well before, I'll be honest with you now. The fact that you claimed not to have seen anything resembling a device had me, admittedly, rather stumped for a while... But then again, who knows, that might have been for a very simple reason like the involvement of a perception filter, just to state one," he commented with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "What troubles me more is the fact that I don't know of any technology that would be highly enough advanced to be capable of creating a method to travel through dimensional walls without completely shattering the fabric of reality along the way – other than _maybe_ Time Lord technology."

That last comment had Lydia's eyes widening, wondering where this could possibly be going.

"But after the Time War, even that potential and the knowledge of how to use it has been wiped out, leaving me and the TARDIS as the sole remaining source of it. And the only other known example of a successful method to travel the Void while the dimensional walls had been mostly intact, has been a direct result of the War, and that, too, is gone now."

Lydia could only continue staring at him, a little overwhelmed with the information he kept unloading on her. This was so not where she had been expecting the conversation to go, nevermind that hearing the Doctor mention the Time War was already unusual enough.  
While she _had_ wondered just how exactly she had managed to end up here (along with how a supposedly fictional world from a TV show could actually exist), this was blowing the whole matter quite out of the proportions she had ever been expecting.

Because what the Doctor seemed to be suggesting, meant that whatever had resulted in bringing her here had been intentional – instead of being just a random freakish, cosmic accident, or the universe sneezing (or whatever else people might call it), as Lydia had been thinking it of.

Having let that bit sink in for a second, the Time Lord continued, "Now, recklessly using already existing fractures in the walls to bleed through is one thing – but to cut a whole new, clean breach into them when the walls are stable with them mostly remaining so... that is something else. I can't help but wonder what exactly it is that brought you here, and just who created it. And especially what the whole purpose behind it might be."

Well, crap.  
Now she was beginning to understand where that suspicion of her being in league with some organsiation had been coming from...

"Guess that makes two of us then..." she mumbled, still quite baffled with that new information.

Another hum from the Doctor.

Gathering her wits after a moment and deciding to sort through the implications of what had just been shared with her later as it was a little too much right now, Lydia tried to steer the conversation back to what she hoped might have something to do with finding a way back home.

"Right, so... Whatever it is, you think you can find a way to it?"

"Now that I have a more substantial base for the TARDIS to work with, possibly, yes – with your help."

"And..." she swallowed, gathering her courage to face any possible answer, "D'you think it might get me back home?"

Her question was met with silence, the Doctor holding her gaze. After what felt like a small eternity, he finally answered.

"Theoretically. Judging by how sophisticated it must be in order to work in the first place, and depending on what methods it operates on, there might be some kind of coordinate system in place. I'm just speculating here, though, mind."

Lydia's heart-rate picked up, and she could barely keep herself seated with the excitement his reply evoked, bum sliding forward to the very edge of the jump seat. "How can I help?" she was quick to ask.

The corners of the Doctor's lips twitched into a brief smile at her eager reaction.

"As I mentioned earlier, your body has been exposed to a unique energy signature that our mysterious device apparently emits - another bit that has me curious, but is quite useful in this case - and we should be able to filter it out of your cells and trace it with the TARDIS. Boost the signal, so to say, since the blip she picked up before wasn't quite enough for that."

Wait. He had mentioned something about 'her cells being saturated with it' before...

"It's not like radiation though... right?" Lydia asked a bit uneasily, really hoping that wasn't the case – the scare she'd gotten on Eden had been bad enough, revisting her in some more nightmares after the first week following the events. (And no, she was trying not to think back to the anti-radiation pill and anger over the spiked drink right now, thank you very much.)

The Doctor seemed to pick up on her unease, as he threw in, "Oh, no need to worry. I checked, it is completely harmless in nature and should have no further effect on your body. It's just there."

"Okay..." Lydia allowed warily, hoping he was right and telling the whole truth. It sounded a bit like the Doctor didn't really know what it was himself, and she had to admit the stunt with the spiked drink and his previously unmentioned suspicions towards her had her own trust in him a little rattled...  
"How do we filter it out then?"

"By hooking you up you to the TARDIS."

The young woman's eyebrows shot up at that. "'Hook me up'?"

"Yep," he replied, popping the 'p'. "There's just one thing I'd like to do first before we go through with this, though."

"Oh?"

"As I said, a perception filter was just one potential way of making you not notice what transported you..."

Lydia needed a second to remember what he was talking about after all the information she had been left with. Once she did and he still didn't continue after another second, she prompted, "Another one being?"

"Manipulating your mind, or rather your memory."

A beat of silence as she stared at him.

"You're kidding."

"I'm not."

The redhead ran a hand through her hair, wondering how many more surprises and scares the night might be holding in for her. It was slowly reaching the point where she was starting to feel a little numb with it all.

She should've stayed for one more drink at the pub – could've really used it now.

"Let me get this straight; you think someone might've messed with my mind in order to cover the tracks of that device?"

"It's just as well a possibility," the Doctor confirmed. "It would also be an explanation for your belief in a TV show about me; clever way to leave your mind with information and get you close to me, but disguise the true source and intention behind it."

A sigh escaped Lydia's lips and she turned her head to the side for a moment, taking a deep breath and eyeing the round protrusions in the walls of the room while trying to curb a fresh spike of frustration.  
After all the talking, it still came back to this?

"So you're still not really believing me, despite what you said before, are you?" She silently prided herself for not sounding _too_ accusing.

"You have to admit, with all the mysteries surrounding you and your arrival, it is a bit hard to dismiss the idea. And it would fit in with everything rather nicely."

"So much for 'taking my word on it' then," she couldn't help commenting sullenly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"I _am_ taking your word on it; I believe that _you_ genuinely believe your story to be true at this moment – but that still leaves the possibility of someone manipulating your memory, to make you yourself unaware of the true background, open. Maybe just waiting for the right trigger to happen."

Lydia's eyebrows nearly disappeared into her hairline. "To happen for what?"

She didn't like the calculating look in his eyes.

"That would remain to be seen."

Lydia wasn't sure whether she was more offended or incredulous about that wild assumption. The very idea was... outlandish.

_'But was it_ really _...?'_ a tiny voice in the back of her mind remarked. It had, at least, a more rational approach to everything, and he had a point about the theory fitting in nicely...

_'Yes,'_ she shot it down after just the slightest bit of hesitiation, ignoring the lingering grain of doubt the Doctor's words had planted. She _had_ watched his story on the telly. Heck, there was a whole worldwide franchise going with it; conventions, references throughout the media, countless fans, some of whom she'd met and talked with – her best friend himself had gotten her into watching the show, for heaven's sake! How could anyone fake _that_ into her memory?

She understood that the prospect of a fictional show about his life in a different world with the simple intention of entertaining people must sound mad to the Doctor, really she did - just as it had sounded mad to her to be in a world where he truly existed - but going so far as to suggest something like that?

"Okay, but... what does that all have to do with tracing the device?" she finally brought the conversation back to the heart of the matter.

When the calculating look still didn't leave the Doctor's eyes, she began feeling somewhat uneasy.

"I'd like to check your mind for any kind of manipulation before we go on with it."

All right, now she was officially at the numbed state with the surprises, feeling her face freeze into a blank mask, not knowing how to react to that.

"Check my mind?" she repeated numbly. "As in, look into it?"

"Yes. I don't really like the idea of going blindly into the situation with you connected to the TARDIS whilst even the slightest chance of this scenario remains."

Something on her face must've shown her reluctance towards his request, because the Doctor was quick to go on.

"Look, I know the idea can be very intimidating - even if it's just a surface check to look for anything amiss, or set up memory triggers - and I will absolutely respect it if you wish not to let me enter your mind," he assured her. "But I won't feel comfortable hooking you up to the TARDIS until I'm absolutely certain this isn't the case. I might be able to work out another way to trace it in time, but frankly speaking, the more time we lose, the less likely the chances are to get clear results out of the faint live signal..." His dark eyes softened the smallest bit at that. "Sorry."

Lydia felt a cold weight settle in her stomach. So if she refused to let him have a peek into her most private place, there might be no investigating a possible chance of finding a way back home?  
She tried not to feel too offended at the sort-of-ultimatum, he kinda had a good reason for it from his point of view, after all, no matter how outlandish to her. But still...

So it was either giving in and letting him invade her privacy in the most profound way, or really be stuck here for good?  
And it wasn't even guaranteed that the device would get her home, even if she did agree and they'd actually find it...

But the possibility was there.

She lowered her head and stared at her worn, black Converse, weighing her options. The thought of having someone inside her head with access to her thoughts was pretty scary, no lying there... But if she refused, just to later realise that she herself might've ruined an opportunity to get back to her old, familiar life, to see her family and friends again, without even _trying_...

"Alright," she was surprised to hear herself say. Her mouth had run a little ahead of her, but deep down she knew she had already made the decision.

"You are sure?"

She stood up from the jump seat and nodded. "What the heck – if that's what it takes." If there was even the remotest chance of getting home, she would sure as hell try to go for it. "So... what do I do?" she asked, feeling a bit nervous about the prospect of letting someone into her head.

The Doctor straightened up from his own perch against the console, removing his hands from his pockets, and Lydia's nervousness increased when he took a step towards her, coming to stand right in front of her.

"Nothing, really. Basically just relax and try not to concentrate too much on anything in particular, I'm just going to have a look at the surface," he informed her, before adding, "Or maybe try to focus on your breathing if that helps."

Lydia let out a long breath. "Got it. Just a general surface thing, right?" she couldn't help checking again.

"Yup. No snooping around, I promise. You can always imagine closed doors in front of anything you don't wish me to see, but as I'm just going to look for any kind of manipulations in the structure of your mindscape there should be no need for that."

"Okay," she replied, trying to calm her nerves.

"You're aware that I'm a touch telepath?"

"Uh, yeah... You use your hands, right?"

"I do, yes. So don't be surprised if you feel me touch your temples, all right?"

She nodded.

"Ready then?"

Taking one final deep breath, Lydia nodded once more before closing her eyes. Despite knowing it was coming, she still startled slightly at the soft, cool touch on the sides of her face, pulse quickening a little more with nerves. For the first few seconds the soft, physical touch was all she felt, though, and she tried to follow the Doctor's suggestion of focusing on her breathing in the silence that was only interrupted by the faint pulsating sound reverberating through the control room.

Breathing in. Holding it a tick. Breathing out. Breathing i–

The breath she was drawing faltered slightly when she felt the weirdest, 'tingling' sensation in her mind. It reminded her a bit of that strange sensation during a déjà vu, or more precisely the feeling of something being _off_ that accompanied it; an awareness of something apart from her own thoughts being there.

It felt beyond strange.

Her nervousness increased even more; they were really doing this – the Doctor was actually _inside her mind_!

While amongst the humans she had known mind reading had just been a mostly fictional idea, in this world there were obviously beings that could very much do that – as she currently had one of them inside her head right now.  
That was when she realised that she had no real idea about the true extent of the 'check-up' and what exactly was happening; whether or not she'd even be able to detect - not to mention stop - anything from happening to her mind that went beyond a surface check. Yes, he had suggested imagining doors – but would that really help to keep things private, beyond counting on his politeness not to look?

Despite her attempt to focus on her breathing and not think, subtle thoughts continued spiraling down into irrational unease, encouraged by her nervousness and the rattled trust into the Doctor's honesty towards her.

It dawned on her that she couldn't really be sure what the Doctor was doing right now; what his true intentions where, no matter his promises. That he still wanted to check her mind despite saying he'd take her word on where she believed to have her knowledge from earlier, left her wondering – even if she kinda understood where he was coming from with his suspicions in regards to the device and its origins... But those suspicions kinda made the situation worse, didn't they? And what exactly had he even meant with manipulations and triggers, anyway? What would he interpret as such? And how would he react if he found something he didn't like or might consider as such, be it just from some random, fleeting thought she had?

Or what if he didn't like her having all that foreknowledge connected to him?

Shit, she had really not thought that through before blindly agreeing in her excitement to get back home – who knew what was about to happen, and not knowing what to expect and whether she would be able to prevent it was starting to freak her out a bit.

Because what would stop _him_ from manipulating her mind in any way?

It's not like he'd never done it before.

Following the rapidly growing worry, the memory of Donna getting her mind wiped against her wishes came up, and all intention to focus on breathing was lost.

And like when typing something into a search bar on a website had suggestions popping up before you'd even finished entering the search term, Lydia's mind instantly latched onto that memory, spurred on by her spiraling unease, and brought up the images that went along with it on its own accord: the Doctor's hands on Donna's temples, saying goodbye before closing his eyes. Donna's tearful pleading. Images of her time with the Doctor flashing up, just to be forever erased–

And suddenly Lydia was staring into wide, startled eyes, no longer feeling the strange sensation in her mind, and the pained look on the Doctor's face in front of her seared itself into a new memory.

Realising what had just happened, her hands flew to her mouth, her own eyes widening. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to!"

There was no way he hadn't seen that memory, given his reaction – hell, knowing her luck she'd likely practically projected the scene at him...

She felt like a right idiot.

The Doctor stepped back and schooled his face into a more neutral expression, but Lydia could see that his jaw was tightened, his dimples showing.

"I'm so sorry, I– I don't why that came up, I got a bit scared with it all, I guess, I really didn't mean to do that..." she hastily tried to explain, heart clenching with guilt.

The Time Lord sniffed. "Well, no worries there; I can't erase anything without seeing it, and since we already agreed that your foreknowlegde can be a Very Dangerous Thing, you can rest assured that your fears are unfounded," he let her know in a flat voice.

Lydia felt even worse knowing he had picked up on the fear of getting her own mind wiped off the knowledge about him, which had popped up unbidden. She felt like an arsehole; what must he think she took him for?

"Right, better get on with things then!" he declared with forced enthusiasm while turning to face the console, starting to flip switches and press buttons.

"Did you manage to... finish up then?" the redhead asked nervously. She hoped they didn't have to go for a repeat of the telepathy thing – screwing up once so spectacularly had been quite enough, as far as she was concerned.

"Didn't get to check quite as thoroughly as I'd like, but that memory just rendered it moot anyway," he replied without looking up, hands busy with the console.

"Oh?"

The Doctor still didn't meet her eyes when he elaborated, "It was a clear, untampered with audiovisual memory, indicating you have actually witnessed it happening in some form – as opposed to drawing upon information you have learned by reading up on or being told about. And since it was a very private occurence that happened inside the secure privacy of the TARDIS and that I very much doubt I would share to fill an infostamp with for anyone to get their hands on, it seems your story has just been rather vividly proven to be actually true, wouldn't you say?"

The flippant way he said that was in stark contrast to the closed off expression on his face, and it was all Lydia could do not to blurt out another 'Sorry'.

"So let's just concentrate on the trace now."

It was clear he considered the topic of what just had occured between them closed (probably to never be mentioned again, she thought) and Lydia tried to soothe the guilt she felt about the incredibly stupid blunder. She knew that telepathy must be a very intimate thing to someone like him, and to practically attack him with a painful personal memory like that...

She felt like hitting her head against the console or next best coral strut. Of all the things to happen...

Letting her body sink back down onto the edge of the jump seat, the redhead watched the alien busy himself with the console, working through her conflicting emotions. On one hand she felt incredibly ashamed about what had just happened between them – on the other hand, she was relieved it had apparently led to convincing him about her story and clearing his doubts (along with reassuring her that no one had messed with her mind).  
She just wished it had happened under different circumstances.

"Hold on tight, I'm taking us into the Vortex. It'll make it easier for the TARDIS to follow the trace as soon as she manages to pick it up clearly enough."

That was the only warning she got before the Doctor turned a lever and the ship lurched into motion, the Time Rotor moving, and Lydia hastily grabbed the edge of the seat to hang onto. It didn't take long until everything calmed down again, though, with the Doctor turning the lever back into its previous position.

"Right then. I'll be right back."

With that he jogged out of the control room, leaving a surprised Lydia watching him disappear into the hallway behind her.

What was that about?

As she waited for the Time Lord to return, she tried to redirect her thoughts from the shame of her blunder, focusing on what exactly hooking her up to the TARDIS might entail instead, absentmindedly picking at the edge of her messenger bag. She wondered how he was going to do that, and how he'd filter out the... signature, or whatever. And where they'd go from there once it was done. Would he maybe even take her along?

God, how had her night gone from a drink at the pub to _this_?

She realised she had almost forgotten how surreal everything felt while she'd been around the Doctor on Eden, and was a little surprised at how familiar it seemed now.

The sound of something being wheeled through the hallway behind her cut her musings short, and when she turned around she saw the Doctor pushing a metallic cart in front of him. When the cart finally came to a stop next to the console, Lydia noticed an odd looking device (which, frankly, looked a bit like it was cobbled together from at least two different apparatuses – she thought she might even recognise a part from the flashing device the Doctor had had with him the first time they'd met in that bistro) was standing on a low shelf, with several cables and tubes hanging from it.

The Doctor went to wordlessly open a panel on the console with the help of his screwdriver before pulling some cables out and beginning to attach them to the cables from the device on the cart, followed by some fiddling with the dials on it, concentrated expression on his face. The silence continued when he then attached a tube to something inside the panel in the console, before moving on to the control screen any typing on the keyboard underneath it. Once he seemed to be done, he gave the odd construction a final once-over, before pushing the cart towards the jump seat and Lydia.  
Now that the cart was closer to her, she could see that next to two more unattached tubes a tray was lying on top of it, containing some medical looking equipment. She swallowed nervously when she spotted one amongst them that looked suspicously like a wrapped winged needle that she recognised from being used for catheters...

The Doctor surprised her by sitting down sideways on the jump seat, body facing her, and when he spoke his whole demanour was changed again, closed-off tension replaced by easygoing enthusiasm. Lydia was certain it was mostly a front, which made her a bit unsure on how to act around him, still feeling sheepish about earlier.

"So! I've taken the liberty to prepare something in advance," he commented with a nod towards the cart. "Let me give you a quick explanation on what we're about to do. Like I said, we can filter the components of that energy signature out of your cells – these things tend to be extremely short lived without a life feed, though, and we'll need a continous flow of them for the TARDIS to gather enough data to work with. Which is where this little construction here," he gave the cart a soft pat, "Comes into play. It will take your blood, measure and filter the particles out of it with the help of the TARDIS, and then return it to you. The basic mechanics are pretty simple, really."

Lydia's eyes went back to the tray on the cart, her nerves increasing. Looked like she had identified some of the pieces correctly then...  
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

"Normally I'd take you to the med bay for anything of this kind and do this whole business bit more sophisticatedly," the Doctor continued, "But we'll have to improvise a little and go old-school in this case. Are you comfortable enough to sit here for a bit?" he asked, gesturing towards the worn jump seat they sat on.

"Uhm, I guess... How long exactly are we talking about?"

"I can't be entirely sure as, honestly speaking, I have not met this particular kind of signature pattern before. But depending on how highly the particles are concentrated in your cells, I would make a guess of... half an hour to maybe an hour."

Okay, that at least didn't sound too bad.

"And it's safe, yeah?"

"Perfectly safe," he assured her. "Much more so than the equivalent that the humans in your time use for blood donations, and even there it's considered fairly safe. The TARDIS will measure your blood count from the start and constantly monitor your vitals throughout the whole procedure."

Lydia blew out a long breath. "Alright..." Something else occured to her then. "I, uh, drank a bit earlier... I hope that doesn't cause any problems?"

"Nah, just a few more elements more to separate, not even worth the mention, really. Actually, you'll probably find yourself quite sober afterwards with any lingering alcohol filtered out of the returned blood, knowing the Old Girl. For some reason she tends to consider even small quantities of ethanol to be a toxin."

Oh.

"Any more questions about the procedure?"

She thought for a moment before shaking her head. "No, don't think so."

"All right then. If you could roll up your sleeve?" he asked, pointing a long finger at her arm.

Lydia first went to roll up both, the sleeve of her jacket as well as that of the pullover underneath, at the same time, before realising it would be much easier to just take off the jacket. Feeling a little awkward, she slipped the strap of her messenger bag over her head and shrugged out of the jacket, before rolling the right sleeve of her grey pullover up.

The Doctor had put on latex gloves in the meantime and picked up a ring shaped strap with an integrated display from the tray before putting it around her arm, just over the crook of her elbow. As he held it in place and pressed his thumb against the display, the strap began to shrink around her arm, a bit faster at first, then slowing down once it became tighter until finally coming to a stop. She startled slightly when it tightened again after a few seconds, not having expected it do more, until it came to another stop.

When no more activity came from the strap, the Doctor inspected the crook of her elbow with a latex covered thumb, gently poking a protruding vein. "There we go," he commented and reached for a small bottle from the tray, spraying its contents on the area around the vein.

The redhead kept watching in a strange kind of interest when he started unwrapping some utensils.

After picking up the winged needle and preparing it, he looked up at her. "Ready?"

"As I ever will be."

With that he inserted the needle into the vein, pulled it into position when the end piece filled with blood, and secured it to her arm with a weirdly glittering plaster.

As Lydia watched him work, she had the stray thought hat he'd never looked quite as much like his chosen title to her than in that very moment.

"Well, there we are. The worst part is already done with."

"It didn't even sting?" she shared in obvious surprise.

"It shouldn't, the disinfectant has a numbing characteristic."

"Oh. Neat."

He hummed in agreement and began attaching the tubes from the device to the cannula now resting in her arm. Once done, he bent down to go for the dials on the device again, discarding the gloves along the way.

Lydia's eyes moved from his hands working on the dials to the tubes going from the cart to the TARDIS console, before retracing their path to the cart and following the tubes connected to her arm.

That was when it hit her that she truly was literally hooked up to the TARDIS now, and she couldn't help the involuntary shudder following that sight.

"Something wrong?" the Doctor's voice asked from her side.

"Not really, just... This kinda reminds me of the Guardian..."

He straightened up at that, fully facing her, and gave her an odd look. "How do you mean?"

"Well, the whole 'body hooked up to a machine' part, I guess..." she replied.

For some reason her comment made him study her for a bit longer, before directing his attention back to the dials with an "Ah".

Lydia frowned at his shoulder. "What?"

"What, 'what'?"

"You just had that look on your face..."

"Nah, it's nothing."

"Yeah it is – I've seen that look often enough to know something's up!"

His hands stilled.

"Didn't you say you wanted to be honest with me?" She wasn't sure if she was in the right to demand an answer from him, but something in that look he'd given her urged her to try anyway.

The Doctor continued whatever it was he had been doing with the dials after hesitating for another second, then stood up and walked around the cart to the control screen at the console. He fiddled around with it some more, too, before turning to inspect the blood filling one of the tubes going from her arm to the cart, then checking the control screen again. After several moments he finally turned around and studied her again, just when she'd almost given up expecting a reaction from him.

"I did," he sighed and came to sit on Lydia's other side. "Well, since we have time to spare while the TARDIS works on the trace anyway..." He seemed to choose his words carefully before continuing. "There was a reason why the Old Girl ignored my commands and brought us to Eden after her quick analysis of the data collected from the residue of the breach."

_Huh?_

"That was connected somehow?" Lydia asked in surprise, not really seeing how that could be.

"Yes. You see, when the walls of a dimension are fractured, you can never predict what it might have done to the structure of the world, the fabric of its very reality; what the consequences might be and where an impact might hit. Which is why mucking around with them is such an incredibly stupid thing to do if you value the world you live in," he told her. "I had been surprised at how cleanly the breach had apparently closed itself on this side at first, despite an unstable fluctuation the TARDIS had previously picked up as it happened – until we came to the Guardian's cave."

Lydia's frown deepened and she tilted her head to the side, signaling that she still didn't quite get what he meant, silently prompting him to continue.

"Analysing the data of the residue, the TARDIS must've detected a recoil with the same rift signature finding release on a small planet that had previously been sheltered and hidden from outside influence – until an unprecedented energy flare, likely caused from the picked up fluctuation in the breach, fried the very system that kept them hidden and shielded. Right at the time when the planet would be exposed to a solar storm. So she decided we should intervene in something that had never been supposed to happen to begin with."

Lydia felt her stomach drop as the meaning behind his words began to sink in. She suddenly remembered the partly burnt, severed hand floating in the tank. Remembered the Doctor looking at her oddly after scanning the system, choosing to keep whatever he had learnt to himself...

"Are you..." she began shakily, wetting her suddenly dry lips as she drew connections to what he'd shared with her earlier. "Are you saying that my touching the light could've... caused the otherwise clean breach to fluctuate, and the Guardian and nearly everyone else on the planet to die...?"

Like boyish, curious Lee who had been so quick to make friends, and kind Rona and Iwin with their girls, who had welcomed them to their home. All of the villagers who had been so friendly with them, danced with her to make her feel more at ease...

A severed hand in a murky glass tank being all that was left of someone who'd been keeping them safe.

Her question rang hollowly through the room, and when the Doctor didn't deny it right away, she thought she might be sick.

"You couldn't have known, Lydia," the Time Lord said in a gentle voice. "You said it yourself, you hadn't even known what it was then. Besides, the recoil might have happened even without your interference; you certainly don't seem to be the source of cutting the walls and creating the breach in the first place. That is a cap for someone else to wear."

"Right, I just... literally had a hand in it," she heard herself say, not even knowing where the dry wit came from. Her upset mind had somehow just blurted it out.

The Doctor blinked, before cracking a small smile. "And here I thought _I_ was terrible with puns..."

Lydia tried to return the smile, but felt the corners of her eyes prickling with shaken tears instead. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for any of that to happen..."

She must've looked pretty miserable, because the next thing she knew she had a pinstriped arm wrapped around her shoulder in a sideways hug.

"Hey now, it's okay. We got there in time, remember? The people on Eden are alive and well."

Lydia nodded her head against his shoulder, trying to compose herself again. He was right, but the thought of what might've happened and of the Guardian's fate still had her shaken. Yes, she hadn't known what the light was when she'd touched it and that it might have any consequences to begin with, but that still left her involved.

What such a stupid little act of random curiosity had resulted in...

The Doctor removed his arm after another moment and they sat on the jump seat in silence for a while, each lost to their own thoughts, until the control screen on the console flashing up had the Doctor jumping up to go check it.

"...Well, that was faster than expected."

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, this story still exists. *clears throat*
> 
> It's been over a year since I wrote the previous chapter, so I have to admit that I need to slowly get a feel for this story and the characters' mind-sets again, what with not having worked on it for such a long time... (Oops.)  
> So, sorry if things might seem a bit out of the flow in this chapter, or if the Doctor and/or Lydia come across a bit odd. I mean, there _is_ some adjusting of their footing going on, after clearing things up between them in the last chapter, so... Let's just see where it'll take us? (Hope it's not going to be too bad, though!)

Lydia's head moved from side to side, trying to take in all of her surroundings at once, as she followed the Doctor from the town square like, open space the TARDIS had landed in into one of the adjacent alleys leading away from it. The cobblestone pavement they were walking on and art nouveau architecture around them lay in stark contrast to the countless, multicoloured holographic adverts and signs hovering in front of the buildings – not to mention the tall, more futuristically shaped skycrapers towering over the view against a dusky sky in the distance.

After the TARDIS had finished filtering out the particles of her blood, the Doctor had checked the control screen and fiddled around with his sonic screwdriver before inserting it into a slot in the console – which was followed by a declaration of having to follow the signal on foot, as their current location was apparently as far as the TARDIS could narrow it down.

He had unhooked Lydia from the device's tubes again then, and surprised her by not even suggesting for her to stay inside the TARDIS and wait, when she had been half prepared to argue that she had a right to know whatever - and perhaps even confront _who_ ever - had taken her from her home. (Well, that, and then there was also the desire to be of any kind of help; being presented with a potential way back home had her wanting to be proactive part of finding it).

But it turned out there hadn't even been any arguing necessary, as the Doctor had been quick to once more remind her not wander off while they'd be following the signal on foot.

He had just requested one more thing of her before they had headed out...

* * *

_"Just one more thing; and I know this might be an uncomfortable issue for you after what happened earlier, but it's something that needs to be addressed," the Doctor began, the careful tone of his voice and look on his face making Lydia tense in anticipation. "As we have established not too long ago, your foreknowledge about me and the events surrounding me has the potential to turn very dangerous._ _And from what I have seen from your reaction regarding the fate of the Bowie Base One crew..." He trailed off, averting his eyes and seemingly gathering himself for a moment, before continuing, "From what I have seen, you seem to have some understanding of just what kind of consequences tampering with it might result in."_

_Lydia swallowed the unexpected lump in her throat at the returned mention of a topic that had been haunting her conscience these past weeks, still not completely over the earlier emotional shock of having played an unwitting part in the Guardian's fate. Her pulse quickened at the direction the conversation was taking, fingers boring nervously into the worn leather of the jump seat._

_"I do..."_

_"Good. So with that said, I would like you to seal your memories of any knowledge concerning me, so they can't be accessed from an outside force."_

_Lydia's jaw clenched with increased nerves as she frowned at the man, instantly on her guard at the idea of another attempt of a telepathic connection with the Time Lord._

_"I thought you said you couldn't do anything about my memories without seeing them...?" she asked, voice laced with uncertainty._

_"Oh, it's not me who'll be doing the deed – it's the TARDIS; or, to be more exact, her telepathic circuits," the Doctor clarified. "She'll be able to put a barrier around your memories, which will keep most telepathic beings and devices from being able to access them_ _as long as you're within her reach_ _. Including me."_

_"And that's all she's going to do...?" Lydia checked, hating to be so openly doubting the Doctor's intention, but wary of it all the same, with the memory of Donna's mind wipe still lingering faintly int he back of her own mind._

_The Time Lord studied her from his position for a brief moment, before stepping closer and crouching down in front of the jump seat, making sure they were at eye level before he spoke again._

_"I know it's a lot of trust to ask of you, Lydia, and that it basically leaves you with only my word on not altering your memories in any way – the same way I'm counting on your word not to make any further use of your foreknowledge, trusting_ you _to be able to judge the consequences and danger of that," he pointed out._

_The redhead held his unwavering gaze, taking in the most open look on the Doctor's face that he had yet shared with her._

_"I think that should sound fair enough?" he suggested._

_Lydia's thoughts raced._

_Yes, he had acted against Donna's wishes back then – but the situations weren't exactly comparable, were they?_

_Plus, this was still_ the Doctor _. The man trying to help out and make things better wherever he could. He wasn't someone who intentionally seeked to cause harm, even if she still felt some indignation about the spiked drink._

_The fact that he hadn't simply gone ahead without her consent or even awareness of his intention, speaking openly about the issue to her and asking her permission, was rather telling, wasn't it? He could've probably just tricked her into a scenario where she'd unwittingly lose those memories with her being none the wiser if he so wished, clean his hands of the problem nice and quick without bothering to tell her as she wouldn't even know, anyway._

_While that thought was pretty scary in itself, it also underlined her assessment of his person._

_And she supposed he had a point about her knowledge being a potential danger; she hadn't even considered that anyone other than him might try to get access to it and mess around with it before he had mentioned the possibility, should the fact for some reason become known somehow... She was beginning to understand why he requested this of her, as disturbing scnearios popped into her mind following that line of thought. It was likely even a safeguard for herself._

_She also came to realise that he truly was taking quite a gamble himself here by counting on her word not to act on what she knew, showing quite a bit of trust himself – without even really knowing her, apart from the few days they'd spent together.  
A fact that awed her a little, if she was honest._

_Holding the Time Lord's intense, waiting gaze for another second, the air between them thick with anticipation, Lydia finally gathered her courage and made the decision to trust him with her memory._

_Taking a deep breath and exhaling it slowly, she finally answered, "I guess it does."_

_The Doctor's face softened into a genuine smile at her agreement, the sight relieving some of her uneasiness._

_"Thank you."_

* * *

Thinking back to that one, fearful moment when a brief glimpse of resurfaced doubt had her wondering if she was about to lose her memories, after all, while connected to the TARDIS' telepathic circuit, had Lydia momentarily shuddering again as she followed the Doctor into the alley. She hadn't been able to stop the small spike of fear in that very moment, despite everything, so when the Doctor had declared the deed to be done shortly after with her still recognising him and not feeling any different (well, other than feeling a slight pressure in her head, which had soon started to fade again, though), Lydia's relief had been immense.

It seemed that the mutual show of trust in the other, as well as the confirmation of Lydia's honesty in regards to her story dissipating the Doctor's suspicions, had soothed the waters between them. The Doctor no longer seemed quite as closed off and wary around her as he'd been at the beginning of their reunion (and, if she thought about it, all that time on Eden, really), and while Lydia was still feeling rather sheepish over her earlier blunder from the telepathic connection, she felt a lot more at ease around the Time Lord now. While a small part of her was still somewhat vexed about the spiked drink and being tracked without her knowlegde, understanding the reason behind it now had cooled the innital anger down.

So finding herself wandering out into the unknown again, with the hope of getting back home blooming in her heart, left one Lydia Rayne with a renewed sense of excitement, successfully distracting her from the guilt of likely having played an unwitting part in the Guardian's demise for the time being.  
There was nothing she could do about any of that anymore, anyway, so her mind welcomed the distraction with figurative open arms, eager to focus on the now and on finding what they were looking for instead of mulling over things that were bound to throw her off balance.  
She knew the suppressed thoughts and emotions were likely going to catch up with her in the near future, but for the moment she was more than happy to push them away in order to concentrate on the task of finding a potential way back home.

The redhead even felt a spark of amusement as she watched the Time Lord being in his element, eyes fixed on the screwdriver in his hand as he approached the alley in purposeful stride, while chattering absentmindedly about their location to her. It was an extremely Doctor-ish sight, one she'd been used to seeing on the telly, and she tried her best to fight the creeping sense of surrealism that accompanied it.

"You have to admire the inherent sense of nostalgia in humans, always keen to keep things in a retro style, no matter how far along into the centuries you go," the Doctor commented after she had remarked on the contrasting sight of the traditional architecture meeting the modern technology around them earlier.

"Says the man keeping his TARDIS stuck looking like a 1960 Police Box?" Lydia couldn't help quipping.

The Doctor shot her a look at that, and Lydia pursed her lips to keep from outright grinning at him, which did nothing to hide her amusement, though.

"Right..." She cleared her throat. "So, how far along into the future did the signal take us then? From my point of view, I mean," Lydia asked curiously, before checking, "We are still on Earth, right?"

"Yep, this is Earth in the twenty-third century. Bit of a troublesome era for your lot..."

"Oh? How so?" she asked, taking another, more careful look around their surroundings. As far as she could tell, things looked pretty ordinary and peaceful... Well, if you ignored what looked like a pair of armed guards she now spotted patrolling the street ahead of them. The sight didn't seem to be unusual though, as none of the poshly dressed people walking about or sitting at tables in front of a café seemed to pay them much mind.

"Well, in that humanity has polluted the planet to the point of near uninhabitability, causing conflicts between fractions of people who have to fight for mere survival, and those who chose to ignore the consequences of their means of profit-making by depleting the Earth of its resources and poisoning the environment," the Doctor replied in one long breath. "The planet will recover eventually, but it's a long and rough road for those living through the aftermath."

That had Lydia stopping in surprise. "But... Everything seems pretty normal here?" she pointed out, taking another look at a fancy looking restaurant to their right, with a few people mingling inside, casually enjoying their dinner or a drink. Nothing here indicated any struggle for survival, as far as she could see, and the place seemed pretty clean, too, cosily lit up with lots of dim lights.

The Doctor came to a stop as well and turned to face her. "That's because we're inside the centre of one of the major cities, where the wealthy made sure they could keep their sophisticated lifestyles up under a nice glass dome, supplying their homes and entertainment centres with clean air and water through a filtering and ventilation system, happy to ignore that the world around them is falling apart – as long as they can, that is, since even they will eventually run out of what meagre resources they still have," he muttered. "Trust me, it's quite a different sight at the edge of the city where those without enough money for the centre live, nevermind those who're unlucky enough to be stranded outside the domes and exposed to the pollution, or having to work in one of the factories."

Lydia stared at him, at a loss for words. There had been talks about climate change and pollution in her world, too, calls for change as long as there was still time – but to hear about things _actually_ turning out like that...

She looked up once more at the dusky, orangey sky above them, trying to make out the dome, but couldn't see it. Probably too far away, she mused. Instead, she spotted a brighter spot high in the sky, just barely shining through the dusky haze.

"Hang on, I thought it was around evening time...?" she wondered aloud, frowning at how high what she assumed to be the sun was hanging in the sky.

"It's quarter past four in the afternoon," the Time Lord corrected. "This is about the brightest it gets now during most of the days," he informed her, correctly guessing the reason of her confusion, before indicating they should continue with a nod of his head.

Following the gesture, Lydia resumed walking, morbidly fascinated with the dusky sky for several more seconds. "This is awful... And people just calmly continue living like that?" she asked, hardly able to believe that.

"Oh, not all them – most of those who can afford it book their way out to one of the colonies throughout the solar system, before the planet dies out compelety on them after they've robbed from it for as long as they could. Leave those who're already struggling behind to deal with picking up the pieces."

Lydia scowled at that, feeling disgusted by the very idea.

"My sentiment exactly," the Doctor commented at seeing her face, "But this is not what we're here for. As I said, Earth _does_ eventually recover."

The young woman frowned at his quick dismission of the situation. "Aren't you–... I mean, wouldn't you want to do something about that?" she voiced her confusion aloud. Wasn't that exactly the kind of situation the Doctor would ususally intervene in?

"Who says I haven't already?" he countered, raising his brows at her.

That had her blinking at him in surprise, mouth opening into a small 'o', making the Doctor smirk slightly in amusement.

"Let's just say we're lucky the signal took us to a place and point in time where we don't have to be careful about running into myself just yet."

With that they turned into another alley, passing the guards Lydia had spotted earlier. While they didn't look twice at the Doctor, despite him running around with a whirring device in his hand, their eyes did linger on Lydia for a moment longer, seeming to measure her up. She frowned, feeling a little uncomfortable when she turned around to see them still watching her, wondering what it was about, but decided to ignore it and continued following the Doctor.

As they continued following the signal, their path seemed to take them away from the posh centre they had landed in, the surrounding buildings losing more and more of their noble decor the further they walked, restaurants replaced by less fancy looking bars and later on more ordinary shops and premises. While their surroundings seemed to get less and less posh, the amount of people they met in the alleys increased, indiciating that the less wealthy districts seemed to be more heavily populated. Lydia also noticed that while the amount of more simply dressed people they passed by in the streets increased, the amount of armed guards patrolling the streets increased as well.

One thing that did not change, though, was the amount of holograms adorning buildings and machines, from signs and menus to news tickers running under adverts, each bright and colourful display catching the redhead's eye and tickling her curiosity. She even noticed what looked like a drink dispenser sporting a holographic interface.

"Is everything holographic now?" Lydia asked, unable to help her curiosity as she eyed the dispenser. "I mean, does no one use touch screens anymore?"

The Doctor looked over his shoulder to see what had caught her attention. "Oh, those are still around, but usually not around public areas. People in this century have grown quite fond of waving their hands around the air instead of having to get them supposedly dirty by physically touching public spaces, or so I've been told."

"Waving their hands around?"

The Doctor came to a stop at that, turning around to fully face her with a slight frown. "Yeah. Have you never used an AR interface or seen one in use before?"

"AR?" she asked again, feeling a little dumb.

"Sorry, augmented reality," he clarified. "Must be introduced a bit later in your world then..."

"Might be..." Lydia mused. "I mean, I've seen holographs similar to this in movies and the like, but it's not actually around in my time, more of just a potential idea used in fiction."

The Time Lord hummed at that and stepped closer to her. After a moment of watching her curiously study the interface, he nodded towards the drink dispenser, offering, "Want to give it a go?"

Lydia could feel a tiny wave of excitement bubbling up at the chance of actually using futuristic technology she only knew from science fiction – even if it was just on something ordinary as a vending machine.

"If there's time for that...?"

"As long as you don't get stuck on deciding on a drink, I don't think sparing a minute will do any harm."

The young woman grinned excitedly, appreciating that the Doctor was indulging her curiosity. She turned to face the machine and its semi-transparent interface displayed on a thin glass pane, taking in the moving, colourful images on it.

"So, what do I do?"

"Raise your hand up to the interface," the Doctor instructed, positioning himself next to her so he could look at the interface with her.

As instructed, Lydia raised her right hand until her palm was in height with the interface, and watched as the display reacted by fading into a text based menu with different categories being shown as button-like fields.

"Let's see... Point at the category you want."

She decided to go with the field in the centre, suggesting carbonated drinks, and pointed her index finger at it. After a few moments of pointing, the text of the field was highlighted with a green colour with a short 'ding' sounding, before the display changed once more to show a close-up image of a bottled drink and its logo on the side.

"Now move your hand to the side, in a motion similar as if you would wave a fly or smoke away, to browse through the offer."

Lydia waved her hand to the left, and watched the offered drink zoom out and disappear off to the side of the interface accompanied by a fitting sound effect, just to be replaced by another one zooming in from the other side, in perfect synchronisation with her gesture.

"This is so cool!" she exclaimed as she repeated the gesture and switched directions by waving to the right before waving back to the left, the display instantly following the movement of her hand. She gave the Doctor an excited grin, getting one in return, and after two more swipes to the left she decided to stop when she was presented with a bright pink drink. Checking it out, she snorted at the name. "What the heck is a 'Berry Bomb'?"

"Let's find out, shall we?" the Doctor suggested. "Try making a gesture as if you'd signal someone to come closer to you."

Lydia shot him a sceptical look.

"No, seriously. Just give it a try," he encouraged.

Feeling a little silly as the idea kind of reminded her of flirting with the machine, Lydia crooked her index finger at the interface; but nothing happened, the animated image of the pink bottle simply continued its slow, presenting turn on the display. When still nothing happened after another try, she felt definitely awkward, cheeks growing warm, and shot the Doctor an annoyed look, thinking he was having her on – which promptly turned into a frown when she _did_ actually see him fighting an amused smile.

"You'll have to use all of your fingers," the Time Lord explained, still smothering a smile. "Though I'm sure the single finger has a more appealing effect amongst people," he added teasingly.

"Could've told me so straight away," Lydia mumbled with an embarrassed mock glare, before repeating the gesture with all of her fingers motioning towards her this time. She was rewarded with the logo zooming in with the addition of a price tag appearing on the bottom of the display. "Oh, right." She blinked at the unfamiliar currency symbol next to the number. "Guess that's that then."

"Hang on a tick," the Doctor said, the hand holding the still rhythmically whirring screwdriver pulling his coat open while the other one reached into the inside pocket to rummage around it. After a moment he pulled the black leather wallet carrying the psychic paper out and flipped it open, then held it close to another, smaller display located on the lower area of the dispenser next to the output compartment.

"I didn't know you could also pay with that?"

"Only works on a few prepaid card based payment methods," he replied. "And it looks like we're lucky!"

The price tag on the main interface turned green with another 'ding', followed by sound of the machine dispensing the drink. That really was quite neat, and Lydia was surprised to find that she didn't really feel guilty about basically tricking the drink out.

The Doctor removed his wallet from the display again and took the bottle out of the compartment, offering it to the redhead with a small grin. "To a successful first advance into augmented reality!"

Lydia returned his grin as she accepted the bottle, raising it in a toasting gesture. "Cheers." She opened the cap and took a curious sniff, taking in a sweet scent that didn't really remind her much of fruit, contrary to the drink's name. Shrugging mentally at the fact, she took a swig from the bottle – and grimaced promptly when the overwhelming, chemical tasting sweetness of the beverage hit her taste buds.  
"Ugh!" she exclaimed after swallowing, the heavily carbonated and cool nature of the drink making her eyes water. "More like 'Chemical Sugar Bomb'! That stuff has probably never even seen a berry!"

"Well, wouldn't surprise me, as actual fruit is a rare thing to find in this time and certainly not around this price range," the Doctor informed her. His long fingers wrapped around Lydia's holding the bottle as he pulled it towards him, lowering his head to take a curious sniff himself, before quickly recoiling again, his brows arched. "Blimey, that _is_ a lot of artificial sweeteners..."

"Sure you don't wanna try it?" Lydia teased.

"No thanks, wouldn't want to steal your hard won spoils."

"How very considerate of you," she acknowledged in amused sarcasm.

"Yep, that's me," he replied with a cheeky wink, before sobering again. "We should probably move on now, though."

"Right," she commented, also sobering. "Thanks for taking the moment, that was pretty cool."

"Quite welcome," he accepted her thanks with a small smile, before moving on with a call to "Come on then!"

Lydia briefly considered leaving the drink behind, as she wasn't really keen on finishing it, but eventually decdided it would be pretty rude after tricking it out. So she put the bottle into her messenger bag after putting the cap back on, before making to follow the Doctor – she supposed it would at least serve as a sort of souvenir from their trip to the future.

As she walked alongside the Time Lord, doing her best to keep up with his long strides, the redhead contemplated their recent exchange, a little surprised at how easy the banter had come. She supposed that the Doctor being less aloof and untrusting of her had a lot to do with that. Being a little silly and bantering felt really good after the emotionally intense evening she'd had in any case, and she decided to simply take it as that and go with the flow.

The good humour the moment had created soon faded again, though, as their route took them into increasingly seedy looking surroundings, confronting Lydia with some of the aspects the Doctor had mentioned earlier. More and more litter was lining the streets with an increasing amount of buildings that looked somewhat rundown as they continued on their way, and less of the people they encountered seemed to be going about some purposeful business than before, with more individuals simply loitering around. Clothes no longer appeared as considerate on looks, like in the previous areas they had been in, seemingly more focused on warmth and function, and some of the premises around them grew more questionable as well.

As they walked down stairs leading to a lower area, they passed a small group of young men and women gathered at the bottom and sharing a drink, some sitting on broken furniture scattered around the base, some on the concrete steps and ground. While the Doctor seemed intently focused on the screwdriver and following the signal as they walked past the group and not to be paying them much mind, Lydia took note of the wary looks they were giving them, most of them eying the Doctor and the glowing and whirring device in his hands intently. She couldn't help throwing one more look over her shoulder after they'd moved away from the stairs, and felt somewhat uneasy when she noticed the group still staring after them.

Turning her head back, she hurried up a little and made sure to stay in step with the Time Lord, wondering just where the signal was taking them. As if the screwdriver had read her mind, the rhythm of the pulsating whirring increased drastically enough for even her ears to pick up on the change.

"We're getting close," the Doctor confirmed her assumption.

Lydia felt nerves mingling with excitement at that declaration, unsure of what - or who - they might find when they reached their destination.

They walked through a long, dimly lit underpass, smelling faintly of the litter lining the wet walls, and as they emerged on the other side they found themselves in what appeared to be a residential area, with narrow alleys leading along tall, rather rundown looking buildings connected to one another by walkways on the higher levels.  
A woman hanging up laundry at one of the buildings above them briefly stopped in her motion as she spotted them, before slowly resuming her task while keeping an eye on them through the grating underneath her. Lydia wondered why they were attracting so much attention now when before people had barely even taken note of them at all (well, other than those guards she had caught eyeing her) – this seemed to be a pretty big city after all, so surely seeing strangers around wasn't that unusual?

Before she could further ponder over that, though, her attention shifted when the sonic whirring of the screwdriver went up into a high pitch as they turned around a corner and walked into an open area. A group of children in front of them was huddled around something, apparently distracted from a started game of hopscotch just a few feet away from them as a small bag lay forgotten in one of the fields painted on the ground.

The sound of the screwdriver seemed to carry over to the children, since a few of them turned around to look into Lydia's and the Doctor's direction, the movement opening up a view on what they were huddled around: a dark haired boy around the age of maybe nine was holding a metallic device in both of his small hands, the shape vaguely reminding Lydia of those clunky, very first mobile phones from what she could see, with a single orange light blinking on the edge of the top.

The boy, too, looked up from the device when the others turned around, his eyes widening at the sight of them, causing Lydia and the Doctor to stop in their tracks.  
The Time Lord exchanged a long look with the redhead, before lowering the screwdriver in his hand and starting to walk towards the group, plastering a friendly smile on his face.

"Hello there!"

Yet as soon as he'd spoken and taken a step in their direction, the group broke out into shouts of "Shit!" and "Run!", before splitting up and running off into different directions, the boy holding the device taking off into an alley to the left.

"Oi, wait!"

Before Lydia had even properly processed what was going on, the Doctor was already running after the boy, the tail of his tan coat disappearing around a corner.

 


End file.
